Five Minute Friday: REAL

Every Thursday a one-word prompt will be announced here on my blog at 10pm EST (and continuing through Friday).

Those who’d like to participate in Five Minute Friday will write for five minutes on the topic of the week, post it on their own blog and link up the post here.

GO

Well there's a scary word.  REAL.  Who actually knows the "real" me?  And is our internet obsession and online presence ever truly real?

Facebook friendly: with makeup and hair done

I liked walls.  I liked to keep people at a distance.  I wanted them to see a version of myself, not the "real" me, and I was afraid of anyone getting too close and seeing behind the walls.  I found that sarcasm is a great wall-builder.  So is humor.  And lies.  And just plain being mean.  I worked hard to build my walls, and I thought of myself as dwelling in some fabulous castle behind my fortifications.

But then God showed up in my life.  He made His presence known.  And one very important thing to know about God is that he is a wall-destroyer.  Just look at the Battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua.  Those people did absolutely nothing but walk around for a week and play some music.  God is the one who made the walls fall down.  And He did the same for me.

Making silly faces with the boys

My choice would have been to open a door and let some people in.  Or to step outside the walls from time to time, but leaving them standing so I could retreat if necessary.  But God's plan for me (and His plan for you) is to demolish the walls, to leave nothing between me and Him, nothing between me and the people I'm meant to know and love.  Without walls, they can get to know the real me, and maybe they will love me when they know the real me.

STOP

Five Minute Friday: Still

Welcome to another week of Five Minute Friday — an online community where bloggers who mostly don’t even dare to call themselves writers put their brave on week after week and bring the internet alive with their beautiful words.

It’s a place where we write free and deep and wide, where we let it all spill onto the screen in all its messy, jumbled up glory. It’s a place to link arms with others, to lift them up, to shine a light, to give hope.

Ready?  GO.

Still.  There was a time when I couldn't do it, couldn't find the peace and inner quiet to just let myself be still.  There was so much inner agitation, so much that would appear unbidden in the stillness, so I got busy.  I made my body busy.  I made my mind busy.  I made my life busy.  Surprisingly, it was the arrival of children that broke through the busy.  It was the decision to stay home with the beautiful baby that brought me face to face with stillness.  And it was hard, those early years.  I didn't want to be alone with my thoughts, yet what was there to distract me with this newborn who slept and ate all the time, never giving me anything to fill the stillness?

We have a practice now called Quiet Time.  I crave it each day.  I get through my busy mornings with the promise of a chance to sit, to be still, to think or write or read or lay down.  The children like it too, although the youngest claims to hate it.  He is like I once was, afraid to be still.  In his case, he is afraid of the sleep that will overtake him, afraid he will miss all the fun we are possibly having while he naps.

So what made the difference in the middle?  When did I change from a girl desperately running away from the quiet to one who presides over stillness in a house full of active, loud boys?  It took time, certainly, as nothing in my life has come about overnight.  It took writing, this act of sitting down and putting it down, bringing forth the ugliness and the parts I'd like to forget and pulling them from the dark recesses of my heart and giving them a home outside of my body.  I used to be so anxious, so impatient, and over the years I have come to delight in a few moments of delay, a postponed event.  It gives me time to be still.

STOP.

Five Minute Friday: NEW

A comfy, well-worn shoe

Well that's a scary word.  NEW?  I am someone who likes old.  I like worn-in.  No change.  New makes me think of tight shoes on the first day of school.

Or, speaking of the first day of school, how about who will I sit by?  Who is in my class?  Will I be able to get from my locker to class on time?  Who are my teachers?  Will they like me?  Will I understand what they are teaching?

Or new jobs.  How do I do this?  How will I know if I'm doing it right, or getting it all horribly, horribly wrong?  What are the guidelines?

New is like uncharted territory.  New is taking a machete to a jungle wall of trees and vines and making a path.  New is unknown obstacles and never-before-faced foes.

New is uncomfortable.  New is saying NO to how it's always been done.  New is potentially life-changing.  But it's scary.  How do we ever come up with the courage to try new?  Is it like that saying, we only try something new when it becomes unbearable to remain the same?  Who's with me?

My brave son on the first day of school (in his new shoes!)