Amy Clary: 5minutefriday

Showing posts with label 5minutefriday. Show all posts

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Today, I'm joining with some crazy, brave and inspiring women at the blog of Lisa Jo Baker. Each Friday she gives a prompt and with that prompt, writers write for 5 minutes with no second-guessing. Just writing what comes to them. Then, they share and encourage each other. What a great {and scary} idea.

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Write".

Ready? Go!

When He gave me 4 words for my God-Sized dream and one of them was "write", I didn't know what He meant.
Should I send more cards, Lord?

Should I pass notes at book club or during church service?
Do you want me to write songs? I can try to do that for you...I think I can do that...but is it OK if I only write them to sing in my kitchen, Lord?

Oh, wait! I teach! Should I write a children's book? Or is there some curriculum you're planning on sending me the genius to create?

What does it mean when you say "Write"? Because I've been blogging for a long time...about stuff. Should I do more of that?

And one day it was like I could hear Him laughing this big, happy, belly laugh. It was like the laugh I have when my little ones just bring joy to my heart. And I wondered "what's all that 'big, happy' for?". And He showed me who I am in design. He showed me strengths and weaknesses I have and put a word to my personality that I never wanted to embrace because it sounds so negative to me.

But when I tried it on for size, I found freedom in embracing who I am. I floated about my house and declared who I was to anyone who was listening.

"Yes." He answered. "This is what you're supposed to write about. Write to encourage people just like you.

And so, the words are stirring in me and I can almost feel them reaching a boiling point.

"Yes, Lord", I answer Him. "I will write. For you, I would do anything."

Five Minute Friday: Write

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "True".

Ready? Go!

I feel that God has asked me to step into God-Sized Dreams that I'm scared to death to do. My hands shake as I think of them and my mouth doesn't speak of them as much as it should...because I don't want too many people to know if I fail.

It began with 4 words months ago, "Sing, Write, Reach, Community", and it has taken a shape that I never thought it would. But today, as I'm being asked by people at church when I'll be singing next and "why aren't you up there this week?" - as my mind is focussed on a topic I live in to write about and encourage others in - as I've been inserted into a community I only dreamed I could be a part of {even if it's in so many small ways}, my eyes weep and all of me just wants to get out of His way so that in everything He can be seen.

But this call He's given me in the whispers I hear over the morning devotions by candlelight, they're too big for me. I have to admit that the truth is I cannot do these things. What's true is that I need every bit of His strength to step into His footprints. I need every bit of His guidance and every word He wants to be written... or shared... or sung. What's true is that I'm giving up on the living for me and simply resting in His arms as He carries me to the places He sees for me. "'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit' says the Lord Almighty" {Zechariah 4:6 NIV}.

Five Minute Friday: True

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "She".

Ready? Go!

It came to my heart one day like a whisper, "Don't be offended". And in all my human nature, I replied with an all out laugh and a "Yah...right...don'tbeoffended...". Surely that whisper didn't know how she had hurt me.

I opened up to her and invited her to my home. I made coffee and lunch.

I opened up to her!

and I invited her into my heart...into my one heart that I had guarded so strongly because she said she would be a friend.

I supported her and complimented her and bought her things and made things for her babies...

I opened up...vulnerable and with the look in my eyes that begged "please, don't hurt me".

And she turned on me. She went ahead and hurt me anyway. And she insulted me. And the abuse kept coming in land mines set here and there.

Now, the whisper in my heart, "Don't be offended. Don't hold on to that offense. Don't keep a record of wrongs."

I could only cry. My heart had held on so hard to hurt. It held on tight to it and begged to feel love anyway. "Love does not keep a record of wrongs" the scriptures say. And then there's the golden rule of doing to others as I would want them to do to me. If HIS love doesn't hold on to offense, neither can mine.

The other day, she shared some pretty great news with me. I nodded my head and smiled, sincerely happy for her. I thanked God for His refining and prayed blessings for her.

Five Minute Friday: She

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Mercy".

To love mercy as the scripture says I should...I get all hung up and tongue-tied on that word sometimes.

What is it?
What is it about mercy that stops me in my tracks and either makes me weep or turns my heart to stone?

I had to take this to prayer and I asked God to show me my struggle with it. What he showed me was that it wasn't so much the "mercy" part that I needed to worry about. He wanted me to look at the "walk humbly" part first. When I can walk humbly, low to the ground, and without all the noise of pride in stilettos, I can see the eyes and outstretched hands of others. I can see the very place I was in when He found me.

Yes. Loving mercy is choosing me last. Loving mercy is remembering the heap I was in when He stretched out His hand to me. His hand...it was scarred for the all the wounds of the cross He suffered for me. And in my pile of selfishness and stench of sin, He looked on me with warmth and the smile of someone who was so happy to have found me looking for Him too.

Mercy said to me "forget about all of that, I forgive you & have always loved you".

Walk humbly.

Remember the smudges on the face and the snags and tears in the facade you worked so hard to keep in place. Remember the coldness turned to warmth as everything...every.last.thing. was washed away.

Remember mercy.

Once you remember it, you can give it more freely.

Five Minute Friday: Mercy

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Red".

He made me fall in love with the sound of acoustic guitar almost as quickly as I fell in love with him. In those early days of "getting to know you", when words came at an awkward pace, he would simply play his guitar and sing.

He made me brave with all the music being played straight out from his heart.

One night I began to sing along with him...and he stopped, mid strum to look up at my face. He caught me off guard and I stopped my voice from its melody. And then I saw it. A smile grew across his face as he said "Oh! You sing!".

I didn't really know what to do except to keep singing with him. And while singing with him, I wished for my very own guitar, something I could play my own songs on...the songs my life wrote.

I saved up money, and friends gave me money toward it as a gift, and I drove with him to the guitar store. I played the one song I knew, Redemption Songs, on the one red guitar that looked to be about my size. The sound that bellowed from the small guitar felt like it was my own, like it matched the sound of the voice I kept in my own small frame.

And that red guitar? I will never part with it. Just like I will never part from the man who made me love its sound.

Five Minute Friday: Red

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Worship".
{Pssst...this week's link-up is found at (in)courage.

GO!

This is my song of worship

Dragging tired feet out of bed, running my hand gently through the hair of my daughter as she smiles and asks me for breakfast. I grab my glasses and bathrobe, take her hand, and head downstairs.

This is my song of worship

Vacuuming floors that never stay clean very long. I pray as I go. I pray these floors would be worn with welcome and friends and community.

This is my song of worship

Speaking truth in love to friends who need my words. And it's not because it's ME they need. No, they need Jesus in me. They need my heart...now His...open to them so they can see real, and raw, and no facades here.

This is my song of worship

Crying...no...sobbing as I answer Him "Yes" again and again and then opening my eyes to now see myself "surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses"... and I can call them my community...my friends. And it's not because of where He's placed me that I cry. It's because I see me...at 3...at 5...in middle school...high school...20 something...rejected and hurt and asking "why". I cry now in worship for the beauty I see rising from ashes.

No, not because of me. Because He lives in me.

This is my song of worship.

Five Minute Friday: Worship

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Small "

Ready? Go!

We scootched into the middle of a row and took a seat, a smile on each of our faces as we waited. The family and I were about to watch a presentation in a planetarium. Finally, the lights went out and we all reclined back in our chairs...and we watched.

We watched and we were told about the earth and our solar system and our galaxy. We learned about stars, their different sizes and placements. I saw the size of the earth compared to other planets and stars and then the narrator on the presentation began to zoom out.

In a flash, we were far out in space and surrounded by stars, hanging out in our galaxy.

We zoomed out further, watching the marker pointing to Earth.

Again, we zoomed out...and out...and out....we couldn't even see where our planet was. This place? They told us it was as far out as scientists have been able to research but they know there's even more "space" beyond that.

My heart panicked a little bit as I lost track of where the earth was. I felt like I couldn't find home. I felt incredibly small.

These words came to mind as I sat at the very edge of what scientists have found in searching for stars:

Psalm 8:3-4 "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"

Who am I? In this feeling small, almost invisible after the presentation I saw, I began to wonder in amazement at the very creation of the earth and of salvation's story.

In the grandness of it all, yes, earth is but a speck and I am"small", but I am SO loved. In all of space and its creation, God chose earth and He chose me {and you} to be here. This kingdom upside down, this smallness I feel is really the feeling of being greatly loved.

Five Minute Friday: Small

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "View"

Ready? Go!

It has continued to happen since the day God gave me His view of my life. Years ago He said, "You are like the butterfly" and since that day, I see them; a wink and a kiss from Him each time.

I hated the mess of my story, though I loved its redemption and God's blessing to set the deep contrast to the frigid dark. I told God about that once and that's when He told me I was like the butterfly. And I can see it plain as day, how the horrible circumstances and stories were the caterpillar years. I crawled on my belly against earth and limb. I was helpless yet not hopeless.

One day, God said "Enough" and I saw the years of abuse I had known, all by different people, come to a halt as he ended the chapter and began a new one where I would learn that "man" is not all bad.

The Chrysalis.

I hid myself in the words God spoke over me that built me up and encouraged me. I hid myself in the words this man spoke to me that said I was beautiful...really beautiful. I was all wrapped up in encouraging words, layers of "think on these things" covered me, and I was changing from the inside out.

The Butterfly.

I have found my wings and how I love to bounce in the breezes and rest on the flowers. Simple and joyful, my life in Him looks different than the dark and cold earth I used to cling to.

Today, I can be stopped at a traffic light and a butterfly will cross my windshield. In the yard with my kiddos, I will see butterflies of all sizes and colors make their way in and out of my fence line. And every time I see one, I smile and I thank my God for the redemption he brought to me as I learned to trust him and trust man all over again.

Delicately His and trusting Him with every new moment.

5 Minute Friday: View

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Song"

Ready? Go!

From the time I was small, until the day I met my {now} husband, life had been almost impossibly difficult for me. When I was just 5 years old, abuse showed up in my life...except no one, not even I, knew that it was there. It was subtle...a slow, slow process. Subtle enough to fly under the radar.

I think now that my heart must have tuned in to what was happening, even if my brain hadn't caught up. I began to have nightmares. They didn't come all the time, but when they came they were the most horrible of dreams. I would wake up wailing and calling out for my mom.

She would show up.
She always did.

She would stroke my curly hair away from my face and sing. She would sing until that big, deep sigh would come to let her know I was relaxed. Then she would wash my face with a warm cloth and say to me "Now, let's paint a picture. Where do you want to meet Jesus?" Together, we would create this perfect scene and I would go back to sleep with a smile.

She had no idea, no clue that I was having nightmares because someone in my life was pure evil. If I would have known to say something, I would have. But she knew the song to sing and she knew to walk me to Jesus so I could rest. Perhaps if she did know, she wouldn't have handled it quite the same.

I needed those songs. And you know? I remember 2 times when heaven came right to me as a child. One night, I couldn't sleep and my mom prayed that the angels would sing me a lullaby. They did. My heart could hear an entire choir and they didn't sing a single word...they just let out a song in their voice. I think they always sing like that. Another time, I didn't call for anyone when I woke up. I just said the words "Jesus, let's paint a picture". The next morning I told my mom about how He came to me and I laughed with Him and He carried me on His shoulders.

A child in silent, no one knows about it abuse needed those songs. And today, I cry from the beauty of those moments. The times I can see God with me, even through the ugliest of circumstances.

Always singing. Always with me.

5 Minute Friday: Song

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Comfort"

~~~~

The comfort of expectancy...

We were newly married and I, more than anything, wanted a baby. He had just passed his one year anniversary from his last chemo treatment and I had been struggling and suffering from endometriosis for the past 4 years. Our doctors were not hopeful for us. We were even warned that our child could be handicapped in some way if the chemotherapy wasn't completely out of his system yet.

But God heard our prayer.

I had just mapped out our plan for trying to conceive when the positive pregnancy test came.

I wept and I sobbed. I couldn't believe that inside my womb, that very moment, a baby was growing.

I sent prayers up to heaven, asking God to hold that baby and help him to be born healthy.

And for months after that, I walked around with my hands cradling that growing belly. I tried to comfort my babe as he kicked, stretched, and had hiccups. I would sing him songs and tell him stories.

Comfort. Answered prayers and growing babe.

God knew better than the doctors who counseled us. 3 times he blessed us with children. 3 times He gave that comfort of expectancy. 3 times the pain of endometriosis subsided as I carried those babes in my imperfect body.

If ever I doubt Him, I remember this comfort.

Comfort

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Brave"

Ready? Go!

Brave.

That word makes me think of people I know who have done amazing things. Flying to the other side of the world to tell people about Jesus, staring down a fatal disease and fighting with every breath to beat it, holding hands with children who have been abused and abandoned to tell them they ARE loved, even serving in our military and fighting in wars.

Brave.

But God brought to memory my own "brave" moments.

Yes.

Mine come in the form of telling my parents about the sexual abuse I suffered as a child...my biggest secret until I let it out, or the time I yelled "NO" and fought with every ounce of strength I had to keep him from raping me, or the time I asked God to help me find another way to live while I was locked up in his closet waiting for him to come back from hanging out with his friends.

Bravery stopped slitting my wrist when I wanted to die and decided "I want to live".

Bravery was choosing to stop starving myself, to leave the abusive relationship, to cling to the cross when I had absolutely nothing left.

Bravery was trying to begin friendships again and again only to be betrayed in huge ways and wounded. Bravery invited female faces to my home and tried community...one more time.

Bravery was in the letting go of my past and giving it to Jesus.

And with all this mess, to see Him giving me beauty in return...His love makes it worth it all.

Brave

I'm joining in and challenging you to do the same! Today's prompt is "Friend"

Ready? Go!

Where do I even begin with the word "Friend"? I've shared what the word "community" does to me and that kind of falls in the same line of thought.

But can I tell you of an answered prayer?

It felt like I had been calling out to God, asking Him to give me a true friend, forever. I tried to strike a bargain with Him and tell Him that I only needed one...if He didn't mind.

After praying for months, I was invited to be a part of a book club with some other moms I "knew" from my homeschool co/op. I wanted so badly to decline the invitation. I was scared to death. BUT, since these were moms I saw every week, I didn't want to make up a lie to get out of it.

So, I went.

Another testimony of "simple obedience" was born in me. And yes, there are other stories like this. But because my friend said "yes" and opened up her home, and I said "yes" to joining, God has so richly blessed me.

This group has brought me FRIENDS. Friends who tell me not to try and do things alone. Friends who pray for me. Friends who listen to me vent. Friends who laugh and laugh and laugh with me. They fill my heart with truth and encourage me as I follow my God-sized dreams.

Has he asked you to say "yes" to something? What is holding you back?

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Write

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Five Minute Friday: True

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Five Minute Friday: She

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Mercy

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Red

Friday, August 30, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Worship

Friday, August 16, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Small

Friday, May 24, 2013

5 Minute Friday: View

Friday, May 17, 2013

5 Minute Friday: Song

Friday, May 10, 2013

Comfort

Friday, May 3, 2013

Brave

Friday, April 26, 2013

Friend

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