Five Minute Friday: WITH You

The last Five Minute Friday post for the year and I apologize for missing last week. It was my first week of school and I couldn't catch up with myself or my schedule!

But this week, I am WITH you...

I am wired to be WITH you. Not just beside or near you.

WITH you means: to be in the muck, the joy, the stench, the party, the gang, the depths, I'll be WITH you there. I am not afraid, it is part of who I am.

I know that is how God is, for me. WITH me. I don't want to be God for you. YIKES! Five minutes with me, my busted verbal filter and my crazy non-conventional faith and you'll be confident that I am not!

However, I know how to be WITH you because I've learned that being WITH someone in a pleasant or even dreadful place, is sacred. I wrote to a friend recently that she needed time to grieve. To soak in the pain and process it, regardless of the people around her ready for her to "move on" or "look at what you do have".

Sometimes the discomfort of being WITH people in their misery, grief, tragedy, despair can be scary - like it might get on you too. Sometimes it does. The remedy is the same. Showing up and being WITH someone is a sacred act of love worth doing. Because, after all, Love is something you DO.

Five Minute Free Write: HOPE in What?

I have been pondering this prompt since late last night, contemplating HOPE and what it means - to me. And how to capture that in 5 minutes! Yikes! But, that's the challenge I'm leaning in to this month. Here I ...

GO. 

My HOPE is in God. Theology will only get a girl so far, I've found. Relationship, built over time in victories, losses, grief, celebrations, and struggle, that is where the rubber hits the HOPE road for me. Anyone can tell me what they think of God, the relevance, crutch, etc. but no words, attitudes or worries change what I know to be true by my own personal experience. 

I grew up in the church, yes, but again, like theology, it only got me so far. Sunday school, youth group, and retreats are great, but without my own encounters with God, it would not have done me much good. 

My HOPE is that you will be willing to have your own personal encounter with God. There is Love to be found that is yours to experience. 

STOP.

I drew this when I needed HOPE. It came out of an encounter I had with God. 

Writing with the Five Minute Friday group every day in October. 

Is It Wrong to Ask?

Five minute Friday prompt today

Restore

GO

8 days after major surgery considering the word RESTORE I am thinking of what’s next. Being under the anesthesia delightfully ended the migraine that held me captive for 145 days straight.

I desperately want to get back to life and praying for full restoration of my body from all these months of confinement to my home with minimal travel and energy expended lest the migraine go from a 5 to a 10 on the pain scale.

I think of the verse about how God promises to restore the years the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25), and I wonder what that looks like for me. Is it ALL that I’ve lost/missed in the past months or is it just the stuff that’s important to Him?

My prayer is that He will RESTORE the countless hours I spent in the dark, the countless dollars that we spent on medical bills and lost in income, the countless moments I missed interacting with my hubby, kids, our friends and families. I want him to restore it all.  

I know many others long for things much bigger than these and my requests may be selfish, but part of recognizing and pressing into the pain of this loss of almost 6 months is being honest about what I want restored. 

STOP

This is me in September of 2017. Before the epic migraine and major surgery. I miss her.