A Perfect Way to Fill A Summer Day: Plan An Ice Cream Social ~ Five Minute Friday

He's been known to sit down with a friend and polish off a tub of ice cream without any trouble.

I recall a story a friend told at our wedding reception that had something to do with Turtles and ice cream and the crazy things guys can pack away in their college and career days. They probably didn't even use bowls, cause they were probably still dirty in the sink. But, I don't remember if that was a part of the tale told and it might not be a fair assumption.

Yeah, he still likes his ice cream. Although, you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at his tall, lean stature.

So, when my son and I had an idea to have an ice cream social for our neighbourhood, he had no problem buying 20 litres of ice cream and a few packages of M&M's to go with it.

A glance at the calendar of the remainder of summer days didn't leave many openings and the forecast for the day at hand was sunny and warm, so no better day for an ice cream party than the present one.

Invites were made, Facebooked, and hand-delivered to neighbours and friends. We filled our day planning to bless our neighbours. And, oh, how it got our minds of our own heart-heavy burden.

At 7pm, our front lawn began to fill with friends who still had the evening available to join in our last minute party.

Milkshakes were sipped, ice cream ran sticky down the chins of children, and the adults shared laughter and a small snippet of life together.

All the while we polished off almost 20 litres of ice cream and when everyone made their way home, our hearts filled to overflowing with joy from the opportunity we had to open up our home and hearts to share our crazy spontaneous, simple ice cream social.

***

Joining Kate for the sequel to Five Minute Friday.

Today's writing prompt is the word : Fill

Begin {Five Minute Friday}

I have had a hard time letting thoughts run out through my fingertips and into words that form sentences that make sense of the jumbled mess of my musings. For fear of the raw that will cut twice. It seems easier to run away instead of embrace the work laid out for you. But it is never the best way.

So I join in the Five Minute Friday mob of writers to courageously let out what is caged in. To soar on wings like a bird set free. Where we let the words flow like water over a wound for cleansing and healing.

Whether you are writing or reading for five minutes on Friday, if fear is keeping you caged in, it is time to begin the next thing.

"Now begin the work,

and the LORD be with you."

Begin

the work. I falter.
The fog has descended
and clouded the way.
I strain my neck to
look ahead.
My knees buckle.

It is too much.
I cannot bear it alone.
I crumble under the weight of it all.
I cry out in silence.
I don't know how to put into words
the ache of my soul.

I am in the valley.
The darkness of the mist
chokes me.
I groan inwardly
and try to live outwardly
without fear and trembling.

But, it escapes.
I break.
I weep.
I seek.
I know.
I begin.

I cannot see
what lies ahead. I look
up to the hills anyway. I have little
strength and my faith is small
To climb mountains.
But He gives me enough.

To take the next faltering step.
To lift up the tool.
For he has given me
all I need. Even
when the boulders come
crashing down in life.

I can face this mountain
full of courage
in eager expectation and hope that
Christ will be honoured
in my body.
By life or by death.

The Lord
He tells me to begin
the work
He has begun.
He is with me.
He is the one that will bring it to

Completion.

***

It's been a long time since I have linked with Five Minute Friday. I have missed the community of writers and didn't want to miss out for the final time at Lisa-Jo's place. Thank you, Lisa-Jo for what you have started and allowed to grow here in this place and how you pass on the baton for others to carry. May we all be willing to begin the work before us, straining towards the finish line, with our eyes fixed on the author and finisher of our faith.

This week the prompt is: Begin

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  for one final time and invite others to join in {at Kate's place next week}.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

When All You've Got is NOTHING ~ Five Minute Friday

I've got nothing. Seriously. I wish I could write fast for five minutes and weave you a wonderful story to inspire you or a beautiful piece of poetry to leave you lost for words.

All I can say is I've made it to the end of the week and I'm about as empty as the blank screen before me.

I'm digging deep for something profound and I coming up gasping for air. I'm chasing after the wind; I feel it in my hair, I watch it dancing in the tall poplar trees out back, but I can't grab hold of it and pin it down.

I watch the birds soar high into those poplars and listen as they trill their songs. They are busy guarding their nests and caring for their hatchlings. They have not a care in the world. Except when something threatens their young. Then their songs turn to calls of alarm. They do exactly what they have been created to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Those birds can't keep harm from their nests. The wind can whip around those trees and destroy everything they have built. Predators are on the prowl. 

Some days it feels like life is falling apart faster than we can put back together again. Those were words my husband let slip this week as we walked just steps behind our own young children.

As hard as we try, we can't keep harm from our young. We call out in alarm. We gather them as best we can under our wings. But the winds of life destroy and can leave us feeling empty. Helpless. There is only so much we can do. Nothing more. Nothing less.

What we need on days like these, when everything seems empty and nothing seems possible, may not be the profound, but rather, the simple lesson we learn as we pay attention to the birds soaring high on the breeze.

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?"

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." {Matthew 6:26, 27, 34}

***

It has been months since I joined in with the crowd at Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. It couldn't have been a better day to have this prompt for it is exactly how I felt. I had about five false starts and finally fumbled out a few thoughts that took a few more than five minutes. 

This week the prompt is: Nothing

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Joy

You know when you blinked and your baby turned four in February. Her gentle curls have grown out and cascade like sheer elegance all the way down her back. I still call her my baby, but she always asserts that she is a big girl. She is a delight. She has taught me how to laugh at the days to come. Just as her big brother and sister have tutored me as I've grown up into motherhood.

I should be round with swollen belly according to my past track record. Instead I just wear the scars and marks from the three times I have been swollen. I doubt I will ever feel those kicks inside and count down the months, weeks and days waiting for the joy of cradling the life I had already loved close to my heart. It leaves me with an empty forlorn feeling.

Until I look up and see the three I have been blessed with. Three precious children that need a Mama still. Three that fill my days, my hands, my heart. The ones I teach and are teaching me about life and love and really living.

There is no greater joy than to watch my children walk in truth.

My son, he was in bed for two hours when, he called me to his room. He had a question. Clenching my jaw, I told him he'd have to ask me in the morning. He persisted. I loosened up and listened to the heart cry in his voice and changed my mind. I stood in his doorway. He spoke in hushed tones. He had to know if there were people starving in the world right then. I whispered back, yes.

"Then, Mom," he searches, "I have to do something. When I'm bigger I have to help them. I want to help them. They shouldn't be starving." He continues with his thoughts of love and justice and my heart cries.

There is no greater joy then to watch my children grow up to care, to walk in truth and to love mercy.

I opened up my hands again and receive the joy, cradled it close to my heart.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Joy

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Crowd

My mind is cluttered. My heart is restless. My body is frail. My soul years for quiet.

I push off from shore to escape.

I'm like Jonah running from grace. It's a messy world and we don't deserve it anyway. I hop on a ship and want to flee from sharing the message of grace. To taste grace I have to be willing to face the selfishness, ungratefulness, pride, square in the face. It requires a humility that I don't always want to posses.

I want the resurrection, but I'm not sure I readily take up my cross.
I want to be poor is spirit, but I'm not sure I've stopped storing up temporal treasures.
I want to mourn sin, but I'm not sure I really want to be lowered.
I want to seek after the kingdom of God, but I'm not sure I've surrendered my own.
I want to look to Jesus, but I'm not sure I can take my eyes off myself.
I want to harbour Jesus in my heart, but I 'm not sure I want to be hated.
I want to suffer for His sake, but I cower in fear.
I want this, but I can't do it on my own.

My flesh wages war and my spirit faints.
My thoughts are teeming with questions.
My faith is crawling with doubt.

The darkness tries to extinguish the light.

Oh, my faith is too small.

The crowd presses in.
I can't breath.

I need to stop running and rest.
I need to stop trying and trust.

Man overboard is the only way to go.
It's not comfortable but it's the only way to find my all in Him.

I need the steadfast love of the Father, the staggering grace of the Son, and the strengthening power of the Spirit.

I push off from shore and in the stormy waters I see how His love pursues me all the days of my life and I'll never escape His grace.

{Found this song after writing my five minute friday post. Email subscribers can listen by click on this link.}

I asked the Lord that I might grow

In faith, and love, and every grace;

Might more of His salvation know,

And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,

And He, I trust, has answered prayer!

But it has been in such a way,

As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,

At once He’d answer my request;

And by His love’s constraining pow’r,

Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart;

And let the angry pow’rs of hell

Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed

Intent to aggravate my woe;

Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,

Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?

“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,

I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,

From self, and pride, to set thee free;

And break thy schemes of earthly joy,

That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

(John Newton, “I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow”, 1779).

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Crowd

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Willing

The keypad is cold beneath my wrists as I fumble over my own fingers. I am not brave word warrior. I am a broken soul looking for beauty and meaning in this bloody mess.

It's crazy to bleed yourself, your heart, your story. It's all about this laying down, and letting go, and a love that drips. Mere bandages won't do. Stopping the flow is not the solution. It's trusting that what is offered is held as sweet aroma to the One who willingly suffered.

The hum of my heart beats loud as it bleeds and how it's heard I don't know. Sometimes it's stabbed and ripped apart carelessly. Isn't that what we do to one another?

It's the way of this world that lusts after success and craves to be seen. The desire to feel important is so desperate we step on the precious stories of fragile souls. We dig up the dirt to reveal the ugliness of the manure that inevitablely is mixed in with the rich earth allowing beautiful things to bloom.

And the beauty fades. Death creeps up and chokes the life. Dare we offer words when they may only be trampled on and tossed aside like dung.

We bleed, we ache, we taste the cold criticism and feel the lonely ache. Why press on when it hurts?

We are willing to bleed that others will know they are not alone. We bare our hearts that others will know that in the ugliness there is hope. We don't even know all our own dirt that lies deep. It's too dark to see. But, we believe that bleeding brings healing. Life conquers death.

When we pour out from our broken hearts we see our own brokenness first. We know we risk to be really known. We understand that we may be misunderstood. We lay our words down that love may heal wounds.

There is hope. The Word came and took on flesh that He might bleed. His heart was shattered. He was willing to feel the cold death that I deserved. He knew the suffering required of Him to offer hope. His story changed history. His death brought life.

You have to be willing to bleed to taste the sting of cold death and offer living hope.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Willing

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Choose

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you."

The art teacher started the lesson with lines and circles. Two parallel lines and two circles with one smaller circle tucked inside the larger one. Step by step, she had her students each draw their own clock.

She taught them about perspective.

As the little Picassos finished up the lines and numbers on their clocks they could pick their favourite time of the day and draw hands on the face.

She made the point that twice a day their clocks would be absolutely right.

Twice.

There are 1,440 minutes in a day and for two of them their clock would be telling the right time.

Goes to show you, we really don't have much control over our own days.

Everything we create has come from something. Everything we do depends on the breath given to us. Every bit of love we give comes from a Love that abides in us.

We think we can plan and control our lives to the nth degree, but just look around at your circumstances and you'll see much of it is out of reach of your control.

We even dare to believe that we can choose God.

His Word says the exact opposite. We cannot choose God. He chose us even before time began, from before the foundation of the world, before life was breathed into man.

He chose us to bear fruit. To spend our lives growing love.

Not to fill up all our time trying to be right or do right but to be in a relationship with the Creator of every thing and who exists outside of time.

So give yourself a break. Stop trying to fix yourself. Turn your eyes off your own self and look to the One who is greater than time.  He makes all things right and beautiful in His time.

The Good News is He wants you so much He stepped into time so we could be with Him for all eternity.

He wants you to abide in Him and grow in His love. Spreading His love like a never-ending circle and like lines that go on forever.

Absolutely right with Him all the time.

Never forgetting how He chose you in the first place.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Choose

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Hero

I don't know, maybe I should have lived believing there really were heroes.

Maybe I should have slipped on some rose coloured glasses so I could have some super vision and read a few more fairy tales.

I didn't buy into the whole hero thing growing up. I never was interesting in popular culture heroes and cartoons on saturday morning. No way. Couldn't stand them.

I wanted real life. Heroes were more for fantasy and the extraordinary.

I lived real life. I didn't see a whole lot of extraordinary in my ordinary world.

Or maybe I just wasn't looking.

When I asked my children this morning, what they think of when they hear the word hero, my son, he tells me while he chewing his toast dripping strawberry jam, it depends on how it's written.

If it's written with zig zags he thinks of the heroes in the Bible.

I stop right there and I believe the boy's on to something.

Maybe it is how we see it?

Are we looking for something grand, some marvellous action, something with the word super in front of it?

Don't true heroes look more like humility and laying one self down for the love and benefit of another?

Heroes don't need huge stories and brazen feats to make them legendary, but a humble spirit and a bold faith to live out their lives sacrificially.

Heroes live their ordinary lives without seeking their own fame, and believe God will do the extraordinary in their lives for the glory of His name.

Maybe I did grow up believing in heroes after all.

Cause when I crack open the simple-folk stories of lives around me, I see zig zags too.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Hero

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Visit

He shuffles out of his bedroom in his blue and white striped jammies, the ones that look like there has indeed been a jailbreak. He stands over the heat register cause when it's -20 degrees celcius outside the frigid air seeps in through the cracks and its cold in here in the morning.

Straight away he would like to know when we'll be heading out. No matter what I say, unless I say right now, it will be too long. He's eager to get together with his cousins. He has almost twenty of them and when they all get together you can believe that they have a lot of crazy fun.

Tonight, there's a party and he can't wait for it to start. But there's much to do before the celebration commences. There's phyllo pastry in the fridge waiting to be cut out for appetizers, fancy ones with cream cheese piped in with a dollop of red pepper jelly. There's dirty clothes to wash, fold and pack, and floors to be swept, and sinks to be scrubbed, in amongst the reading and writing and math facts to be figured.

The hours seem to crawl when there are a few celebrations on the horizon. The visits that will take place this weekend will be joyous, loud, filled food, fun, laughter and love.

So, excuse me mundane, would you kindly move along for there are memories waiting to be made.
Our Mama turns seventy today and the baby of the family turns thirty on Sunday and we plan to make merry with two parties in one weekend to celebrate and give thanks for them.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Visit

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes
2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: Encouragement

The light has come and the darkness has not overcome it.

The day came that The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and the light shone and we beheld his glory.

These are the glorious truths we've been helping one anther hide in our hearts for you need to have the Truth inside you can let it shine forth.

We became children of the light.

And we who are of the day are encouraged to encourage one another. We need to be given courage to give courage. We can claim the nickname, "Barnabas" the "son of encouragement" and give courage to one another.

We who are children of the light are to come along side and inspire one another to "remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose."

The days may be long and the nights may be dark.

But we are not living in the darkness and the Light has come to infuse our days with hope.

I thing, there must be someone walking beside me today that is weak and discouraged that needs me to be Barnabas, to help her see her purpose and together we see remember to breath deep breaths of grace, and bring back to mind that the light will never be overcome. So don't give up.

For more that likely, tomorrow,  I'll need you to be Barnabas for me, as we both know I need to see Christ in you on the days I just can't seem to see the Light in me.

 Let's keep on walking in the light, cleaving to the Lord, encouraging one another with our lives.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Encouragment

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes  {Full disclosure: I most often spend a little more time than this.}

2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Five Minute Friday: See

I'm walking down the sidelines in the cold indoor soccer field with my arms crammed full with boots, coats, clothes, my purse and I find a quiet spot on the bleachers. As I'm plopping down this camel load my son calls out to me. 

"Mom, did you see my goal?"

Oh no, I was supposed to be watching. I missed his first goal of the game for this session of soccer. 

I shout back to him that I'm sorry, I didn't see it and ask the few other moms scattered around if anyone happened to cheer.

Silence. There was no one else there to shout out for him. I was his cheerleader. For the rest of the game I sat with my eyes fixed on the field, craning my neck around spectators that would stop to chat in front of me. I wasn't going to miss another great move if I could help it.

He'd asked me in the van on the way in to town if I'd be cheering for him. Yes, I'll be cheering for my baby boy, I teased as I tossed him back a smile. Moooomm…

I never know with him. 

Sometimes, he makes it clear he doesn't want me to cheer 'cause it makes him too nervous, like when he's the pitcher in baseball. But he seemed ok with it when his little mama went wildly running up and down the diamond madly hurrahing for him when he got his first home-run hit.

But, when he was hoping I'd see I let him down.

I know it's just a soccer goal and he's only 8 and there will be many more games and goals.

I also know I need to stay intentional about cheering on my children.

And not just for goals in soccer, but the great things in life.

You know, like the things unseen.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: See

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes  {Full disclosure: I most often spend a little more time than this.}

2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

Laugh at the Impossible ~ Reflecting on the Hilarity of the Gospel in My Life

She was sitting on the vanity in the bathroom and I was brushing her little white baby teeth; telling her to ‘open up’ and ‘spit it out' when I looked up.

I quickly averted my gaze for I did not like what was staring back. I've never liked seeing myself in a mirror.

But in those few seconds, something caught my eye so I glanced back for a closer examination. I  realized that the lines I was now scrutinizing were etched in frown lines.

I ran a simple test and smiled a goofy smile and the lines disappeared. I frowned and there they were.

Making a complete fool of myself in front of my little girl, I thought to myself that I really need to smile more. I realized that for the frown lines to be leaving their mark, I must be furrowing my brow and hanging my lips down a whole lot more than turning up the corners of my mouth.



I know I take myself too seriously too much of the time.

I know I let the mundaneness and the stresses of life dictate.

I know I have told the kids a thousand times to pick up their things or finish their work or come set the table and I huff and puff and mumble how nobody listens to me. The milk spills and the bills flow in wave upon wave and the washing machine breaks and my immediate thought is how inconvenient life can be. How it interferes with my plans.

I feel the weight of raising these children up right and fear that most of the time I am failing.

I think that I need to be the perfect wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, Christian.

I think of the missing family member, and the marriage imploding, and doctors that can’t do anything with me and I just have to wait until I get really bad and start to faint and then they will see if they can fix my heart, and another MRI scheduled that I'm trying not to worry about.

And I say it, with tears welling up, that life's not fair, even though I know that it has nothing to do with fair.

With all this, how am I supposed to take myself lightly? When do I have time to smile, to laugh?

Oh, don't me wrong, I really do love to laugh. A good hard belly laugh with tears streaming down till it hurts kind of laugh.

It is just that the seriousness of life too often takes over.

Or, rather, we fix our eyes on the things that can be seen in this life, instead of the unseen things that are eternal.



The writer of post over at The Rabbit Room caught my attention with these words about Abraham and Sarah:

‘ . . . the joyful laughter of a couple who understand how outlandishly they have been blessed . . . They laughed sardonically when they heard the prediction. They laughed for joy when the prediction came true. So they named their boy “Laughter.”’

I read this post just days after seeing my reflection in the bathroom mirror. And I recognized the truth that, yes, I take myself far too seriously.

The writer quotes G.K. Chesterton:

‘It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. . . . For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.’

That’s me!

It is easy to be heavy. It comes naturally for me ~ the frown lines etched in aging skin reveal all.

How often I fail to see the hilarity of the Gospel in my life.

‘There’s a deep pleasure in the gospel that nobody talks about very much, and it is the pleasure of saying, “Oh, What a fool I have been! I was so sure I knew how this thing was going to turn out. I shaped my life around a foolish assumption that the world was telling me the truth about itself and my place in it. I was so wrong! Halleluiah! I lived in fear of things that had no power to harm me! I thought I had to exert my will and get my way! But now I don’t have to anymore. Halleluiah!”’

I was/am nothing and yet, God by His unbelievable amazing grace has saved me. He called me ‘out of darkness into his marvelous light.’



It is the season of waiting.

We have so much to rejoice over. To laugh at the impossible because of a babe lying in a manger. God in a manger. God with us.

‘[T]he Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.’

Oh, to laugh.

To laugh like the 90 year old mother of nations. The mother who laughed at the prediction. And laughed again when the promise came true.

I have more reason to laugh than to just change my frown lines into laugh lines.

God has done the impossible.

The shoot has come from the stump of Jesse. The root out of dry ground.

He knew mundane and He knew brokenness and pain. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

He has welcomed me into His kingdom.

He has told me to ‘count it all joy . . .  when you meet trials of various kinds’ that the testing will develop perseverance to bring me to maturity.

And so we wait.

Wait for the Greatest Advent ~ His coming again!

And in the waiting I will laugh!

And how it will light up my countenance and restore joy in my heart.











*A post from the archive with a 'Five Minute Friday' editing.

***

Linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Reflect

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes  {Full disclosure: I spent a little more time on this post}

2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...

"I'll Fly Away" on A Friday Morning {#Morevember}

I wake with the words of this hymn on my mind.

"I'll fly away, oh glory

I'll fly away

When I die, Hallelujah

By and by, I'll fly away.

Some bright morning
When this life is over, I'll fly away
To a land on
God's celestial shore, I'll fly away.

When the shadows
Of this life have grown, I'll fly away
Like a bird from
These prison walls, I'll fly, I'll fly away."

I've been fighting a weight of darkness. Swimming upstream in a torrent of emotions, with joy set before me, considering Him who endured, that I may not grow fainthearted.

You know that saying that goes something like, "Don't be so heavenly minded that you are no earthly good." I don't know who said it or what he/she thought she was saying, but somehow the saying stuck. The problem is, it's not true. I grow fainthearted when I am not heavenly minded; when I do not have my mind set on things above.

How on earth do you suppose that you could be too heavenly minded? Why not long for the day that John tells us about when he got a sneak peak behind a door standing open in heaven? Why not linger on the hope that I will meet our Saviour face to face, dwell with Him in perfect unity, to sit at His feet, fall down before Him, singing a new song? 

Sickness has a way of giving you a more heavenly perspective. 

The specialist shared his most educated guess that I'd have about two years for my severely narrowed aortic valve to hold up, but he doesn't really know. It could be less time or more. I'll just need to keep toughing it out and when I faint call him and he'll sit down with the surgeon again and see if anything could be done. It's not hopeful, but nothing can be down to reverse the damage, so we will keep pressing on. Maybe, pray for a miracle.

I leave the clinic on Monday thinking of the woman who reached out in faith, touched only the hem of Jesus's garment and was made well. Is my faith too small? 

Do I want to be made well?

Like Paul said, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

What's so bad about this heavenly longing?

It actually gives me a peace and an inexpressible joy as I endure various trials. It's the good news that gives hope, the accomplished work of Christ that the angels long to fully understand, and we, as believers, get to experience and believe, and rejoice with this unspeakable joy.

Now on Friday, a young woman, far too young for death to claim her according to human standards, was called home. 

She knows this joy fully now. A few weeks ago, she proclaimed these words of hope as she fought the cancer in her body. The words made an impact on me when I listened the first time weeks ago, but this morning as I watched again after a friend posted the news that she was now FREE, her words reverberated hope in deep crevices:

"We are never alone, and don't have to fear the unknown. I try to live day to day, as everyday as truly a blessing from God because you never know when God may want you to come home. I try to just live through each day and to praise Him for every breath I have because you never know when it will be your last."

As her story closes here on this earth, tears slip down my cheeks. When we pause to bow and praise God for this young woman we've never met and for calling her to Himself, and now home to Him, my little one bores her eyes into mine and asks why. 

I have no words, just this deep rumbling in my soul that whispers of the mingling of pain and joy, trials and trust, an unseeing love that only a heavenly mind would dare to cling to.




God at Work - Jacqueline Li from Harvest Bible Chapel York Region on Vimeo. {email subscribers, please click here to watch this powerful testimony of a young woman called Home today.}

***

Hunting for more of God's Grace,Steadfast love and His Mercies that are new every morning in 'Morevember'.

3 gifts grateful:
~You love him even though you have never seen him.
~Though you do not see him now, you trust him
~and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory

I invite you to hunt along with me for more of His mercy and grace in #Morevember on Facebook and Twitter.

Enter your email address to subscribe to A Soft Gentle Voice and have this series delivered to your inbox.   

***

Also linking with Five Minute Friday at Lisa-Jo's place. This week the prompt is: Fly

Officially, the rules are:

1. Write for 5 minutes  {Full disclosure: I spent a little more time on this post}

2. Link up at Lisa-Jo's  and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...