Being NEAR

This is a portion of a longer blog I will post later today. The Five Minute Friday prompt was so relevant to my world, I pulled a chunk for posting here. 

Parenting sons with ADHD, Chronic Pain, and Tourette's Syndrome is a high intensity and often thankless endurance level race with no finish line. My heart hurts (with their struggles). My head hurts (from the mental endurance and research required to navigate all of this). My spirit is in fervent and constant contact with the only Resource I know has their best interests in mind. I cling to the verse, “The Lord is NEAR to the heartbroken…” (Ps 34:18 AMP). The joy, peace, and hope are tangible too, a lovely part of being NEAR to the One who holds us all in capable hands with limitless options and provision.

Our circles of friends have shrunken like grapes into raisins due to lack of mental, emotional, physical time and opportunity. Our agreement is that there is no one and nothing more important than being present and parenting these amazing people we've been entrusted with. 

We prayed and waited for over nine years to get pregnant and live this life. We are here. Now is the time. Everything else, for the most part, is on hold or in the background. The friends that support and encourage us are kept very NEAR and the ones who we love but don't do frequent life with, we miss. 

We give each other breaks, tag team during intense moments, and check in with each other often to know when the other needs extra support. It isn't the seamless teamwork it sounds like. It is messy. Painful. It takes long talks, sometimes tempers flare and then more talking to process our next steps. Together. Staying NEAR to God and to each other. 

If you want to read the full length version of this blog, join me here or my website www.livecourageouscoaching.com It will be posted by 5pm today Dec 1, 2017. 

Five Minute Friday: Depend - What time is it?!

It's Five Minute Friday time again!

I woke up pondering the word for today (it comes out on Thursday night) and anxious to write on it.

GO.

Depend is the word.

What time is it?

That's the question.

I recently spent some time holding my 97 year old Grandma's hand, talking, singing, and praying.

She was sitting in a room in her care facility with a bunch of other people in her predicament. It felt like a heavenly holding pattern. The preacher that comes in regularly talked of hope. Eternal hope.

My Beloved Grandma's eyes twinkled as she heard him talk of Heaven. She twinkled again when she got to sing Amazing Grace with her peers who, like her, couldn't remember all the words but hummed along.

Then we talked about Heaven and Jesus. He knows exactly when it's her turn and she can depend on Him to know what time it is, He is never late. He knows her. He loves her. She can depend on that too.

Stop.

Happy Friday Everyone! I pray you will depend on Jesus to know what time it is, even if you have to wait. And while you wait, sing, pray, twinkle.

Five Minute Friday: Accept

Five-Minute Friday Writing is one of my favorite things. A community that has blessed me for years.

I have to accept it. It’s real. Making time to write makes me crazy. As soon as I pull up a word document, something happens. The school calls, the dog needs outside, a sneezing fit, the other school calls, a crisis occurs, or I need to go to the bathroom. The issues aren’t original, new or even fun.

I have to accept that if I am going to write, I’m going to have to practically part the red sea of my life and just pound it out. Five minutes at a time, if necessary. That is why I do the Five-Minute Friday writes as often as I can.

I have to accept that I have a job to do. Tending to my family is my number one job. Being present for the ones God puts in my path is my next most important job. Writing is important, but not more than these, so it takes a back seat. 

Accepting my season in life, making peace with the challenges of the moment, trusting God with the words and the time to write them is stretching me more than ever before. I have a book in my head and heart just waiting to bust out of my fingertips. Some day.