Five Minute Friday - Grow

On Fridays around these parts we stop, drop, and write.

For fun, for love of the sound of words, for play, for delight, for joy and celebration at the art of communication.

For only five short, bold, beautiful minutes. Unscripted and unedited. We just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

Won’t you join us?

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. Most importantly: leave a comment for the person who linked up before you – encouraging them in their writing!

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Grow…

GO

I remember... it has been eighteen years now, but I hear her voice just like it was yesterday: "Pain is growth and we should be happy about that." I remember smarting off to her that I thought pain was simply pain and nothing more. I got "the look" for that.

I know that God uses pain to teach me, to GROW me, but I am a sissy and I like to tell people that I am allergic to pain. Which makes it awfully hard to grow, I suppose.

There are plenty of opportunities to grow in my life right now. Not that that means I am in constant pain. It just means that there are many things that don't need to stay as they are. There are many things that I know God is telling me to work through to get to what He has for me on the other side. Good thing He plans to be there to walk me through it. I would not dare do this alone.

That reminds me of one of my favorite gospel songs:

Be with me Lord, I cannot live without Thee. I dare not try to take one step alone. I cannot bear the loads of life unaided. I need Thy strength to lean myself upon.

I love that song. Maybe I need to be singing it more through these present growth opportunities.

STOP

So there is my five minutes. Let's go over to the Gypsy Mama's place and see who is linking up over there.

Five Minute Friday - Growing

We write for five minutes flat on Fridays.

We write bold and beautiful and free. Unscripted and unedited. We just write without worrying if it’s just right or not.

Won’t you join us?

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Go a little overboard encouraging the writer who linked up before you.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Growing…

Oh, I so did not want to write on this. I saw "growing" and I just about opted out of today's link party. Then the negatives came to my mind: my waist and hips are GROWING. My debt is GROWING. I just... *sigh*

There have been other things that denote growing. Brother Dave, one of my spiritual advisors who has known me for years, reads my blog and says that he sees me growing. And its about time, too. The bratty little mess I was when I met Brother Dave and his family needed to grow - upward and onward.

It's just that the type of growing that is happening to me right now is not the fun or comfortable type of growing. It's not like I'm discovering new crafting skills or learning how to cook (Hubby, read = not going to happen). I'm growing spiritually and emotionally and there are growing pains that come with that. Have I mentioned that I have diagnosed myself as being allergic to all kinds of pain? That includes growing pains.

I think I've missed a little of the point of Five Minute Fridays today. I've been backspacing and editing. Trying to avoid what I'm really thinking. But this is what I've got today.

STOP


Come join me over at the Gypsy Mama. Link up your own post or just see what five minutes looked like for others. (they probably won't be as negative as I'm feeling about the subject matter today!)


Today is also a rare occasion that I am posting twice. I have joined a special writing project called "What We’re Worth: A Community Collection". You can view my contribution to the project here and you can read about the project here.  At the bottom of that post is a link you can follow to find all of the community essays on this subject. Please go visit. And if you can, leave some comments on the posts you read. It will be nice for the people who made themselves vulnerable to get a little love.