Category Archives: Five Minute Friday

Five minute Friday – imagine

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IMG_8765Do you ever wonder

or imagine

what life would have been like?

If you had married another person?

IMG_3623Had children of a different gender?

Lived elsewhere?

Grown up in ways that you never knew?

Have you ever mused –

What if you had played a sport?

Continued to play an instrument?

Really pursued that gift or calling?

I do not regret my life in the slightest but sometimes I imagine. Having a daughter. Being Italian. Playing the flute. Writing a book. Living in Europe. Being rich. Stuff like that.

While taking a walk with the Hubs the other day, I started imagining life differently. He’s a good Hubs and listens because he knows I don’t want to be with anyone else but him living this life.

And you know what?

I always come up with

I like my life with my Hubs and three olive shoots.

There are many aspects of the past I would prefer to bypass

But I see God’s hand

How He ordered my days – three sons, North Carolina, Jesus follower who loves kale

And I can’t imagine being anyone else.

5minutefridayWhat do you imagine?

(Check out this fun writing prompt each Friday! It’s a highlight of my week and I love reading the other posts people write about the same word!)

Five minute Friday – song

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This boy when he sings, makes my heart smile.

This boy when he sings, makes my heart smile.

I know my family has found the sweet spot in the day when my orange-hair, freckle face 16-year-old starts to sing.

You will not hear him on an album. His ministry-minded middle is in the Moody Men’s Choir and he sings with wild abandon. He sings almost too much. I love it, don’t get me wrong but there’s a sharp contract between the two.

Isaac, though, most of his songs are silly and they are less frequent. These songs can be of the suburban white-boy rap quality busting bad rhymes about important things like how much he hates swiss chard

or cleaning the marble kitchen island

You know, deeply emotional things…NOT

Quite a few are about me being his mom.

Oh these make me giggle

But more importantly they tell me something very important.

He feels safe.

When I sing, it means I am allowing you to hear my voice. You have been permitted to hear my non-musical melodies. I have deemed you safe. When I am off-pitch or goof up a word, if you are hearing my song, you have been given a gift not necessarily in the form of sound but in the form of security.

Writing for five minutes is a treasure. Do it! Click here for deets!

Writing for five minutes is a treasure. Do it! Click here for deets!

When people sing in this family, it brings more than music to my ears. It brings healing.

Question: When someone in your family sings, what does that mean to your heart?

Five minute Friday – brave

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photo copy 2Why just typing about the subject of bravery is well, brave.

My heartbeat is increasing with each.word.placed.

An idea has been swirling in my head for a while now and I’m afraid. I scarcely allow myself to ponder this and now I’m nearing the moment of revealing it to you.

A sample of the things I used this week. I feel happy in the kitchen.

A sample of the things I used this week. I feel happy in the kitchen.

What if my idea succeeds? What if it’s a total failure? What’s my motivation? Do I have the physical, financial, emotional resources needed to make it work?

Speaking to over 50,000 teenagers about saving sex for marriage was brave. Sharing incredibly personal stories about my past was something I asked the Lord to help me with every time I did it and that was for nearly eight years.

But now the Lord is placing, (I think) an idea which scares me as much as the first time I entered a high school classroom full of very skeptical kids.

My dining room

My dining room

I’m thinking about opening my home to encourage women with cooking and hospitality. Not as a money making idea, not to sell any kitchen gadgets or products, but just to encourage women in the art of domesticity. This is something so very close to my essence as a wife, mother and homemaker.

I think about this idea when I am chopping red cabbage or stirring up a homemade salad dressing in the kitchen. When I’m roasting poblano peppers or making a pretty table setting for my family, I feel this urge to open my home and show others how to do it. I’m so not an expert which is why I’m afraid to try.

When I think about going forward, I bravely ask God, “Is this what you want me to do?” It’s sad that I don’t know any of my neighbors, what if they reject me? So many questions and doubts but yet an eagerness and an unction to try.

Writing for five minutes is a treasure. Do it!

Writing for five minutes is a treasure. Do it!

Should I do it? What is the brave thing you are contemplating?

Check out this word party. This might be the brave thing you need to do!

Five minute Friday – home

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I came home to these people.

I came home to these people.

I became a full-time stay-at-home mom 15 years ago on my husband’s birthday. I wanted to mark that significant day on a day I wouldn’t forget. March 6th is now a day of double celebration for my family.

For so long the ambition of my life was to get respect and recognition.

My observation of full-time motherhood was that it was rife with disrespect and sadness. Obviously I wanted none of that. So I had my own business, attended graduate school, practiced writing M.Ed. at the end of my name.

Individually these things are not wrong. But ultimately they were not what the Lord had for me.

On March 6, 1998, I started working for a new boss. I no longer served myself. A cataclysmic shift occurred in my heart.

God wanted me home.

With only five minutes to write, you'll have to trust me. This is what happened to me when I decided to stay home. Thanks be to God.

With only five minutes to write, you’ll have to trust me. This is what happened to me when I decided to stay home. Thanks be to God.

When I made that decision, priorities changed. My three olive shoots no longer attended day care or after school programs, they returned home to me. The significance sought outside in the world, was comfortably discovered within. Parts of me I had long denied began to blossom.

Within my home

Within my soul

There are times when I don’t always feel appreciated but I felt that way in the business world as well. This is where I belong. Home.

We rock one word for FIVE MINUTES! It's the best! Join the fun!

We rock one word for FIVE MINUTES! It’s the best! Join the fun!

Pleasure and fulfillment rest with my decision, something I will never regret.

Five Minute Friday – afraid

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My son spends a lot of time on the train. I spend a lot of time on my knees praying for his safety.

My son spends a lot of time on the train. I spend a lot of time on my knees praying for him.

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ve got brass knuckles.”

This was my ministry minded middle’s way of reassuring me.

He has brass knuckles, therefore,

I guess,

if he is attacked on the subway or on the streets

at night

in a high crime part of the city

while walking back from coaching an inner city boys’ basketball team

I’m not to worry.

Uh, yeah, right…

It doesn’t work that way when you’re a mom.

I grew up feeling a lot of fear, that “muscle” is well-developed.

The trust and faith muscles atrophied

I’m building them back, working them out though.

Aaron provides me with many training sessions with the Lord.

“Push past being afraid,” God reminds. “I’ve got this. I’m Jehovah Shammah (God who is there).”

Hurricane Sandy encountering MY olive shoot in Chicago. This is him in the picture!

Hurricane Sandy encountering MY olive shoot in Chicago. This is him and a buddy in the picture!

And when he went to Lake Shore Drive to experience Hurricane Sandy and sent me THIS picture of the waters nearly engulfing him…

Oh Lord, my olive shoots

With only five minutes to write, I featured just one olive shoot currently on my heart but I have a Soldier and an orange hair, freckle face OS too, sooooo,

Funky chicks write for five minutes! Come on and join us!

Funky chicks write for five minutes! Come on and join us! Click here for deets.

At least the crime rate is lower during cold weather – (another one of Aaron’s gems…)

Five Minute Friday – again

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Imagine what you could discover by participating in Five Minute Friday! Join us, it's just the best!

Imagine what you could discover by participating in Five Minute Friday! Join us, you will LOVE it!

Oh, Five Minute Friday, again you challenge me.

This word “again” is annoying. I connote unpleasant things with this word.

An olive shoot is being difficult again.

My husband has to travel again.

A family member is ill again.

They didn’t empty the dishwasher

or close the door on the dryer so now the light is out

No one puts away the clean clothes

They rustle through all the other clothes and leave things in disarray

An example of an irritating form of "again." Disheveled laundry!

An example of an irritating form of “again.” Disheveled laundry!

AGAIN

Ergh

You get the idea

Frustrating

Scary

Irritating

Repetitive

Something I don’t like is being experienced additional times. Wow.

And it’s not like I see it only in others.

I have my own “again’s” which feel even more disappointing.

But since I only have a few more minutes, let me tell you about another again which can help me not spiral into hopelessness.

A few years ago, the Hubs got me this pretty print from a West Point mom/crafty girl/blogger.

I bespy this reminder of God’s faithfulness again in my hallway. Again I stop and consider the Lord’s treasures and promises.

A pretty print made by a talented West Point mom. Here's her Etsy site.

A pretty print made by a talented West Point mom. Here’s her Etsy site.

His mercies

New every day

Every morning

Just enough

Again, I approach the throne of grace and ask for His guidance and help.

One of my favorite Scripture verses: Lamentations 3:22-24

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”