Thursday, December 5, 2013

Five Minute Friday - Reflect

Five Minute FridayI’m sitting online tonight with friends from coast to coast and all through the central states (Canada too!) and have just learned that this is our final Five Minute Friday of the year. Lisa Jo Baker has declared a December sabbatical, and while I will miss this company, I will stay in touch with what my girl Karrilee and I have started to call #bossysocialmedia, while enjoying a little more in real life time with family and friends.

But for tonight, we will draw close together here. We will capture our hearts and spill our thoughts, lives, hopes, and fears across page and screen as we play with one word for five full minutes.

Community can be a challenge. It can wreck you, break you, heal you, and complete you. This one – maybe it’s done all of the above for you. But it will still open its arms and welcome you in if you’ll allow it to. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

Since this is the last FMF post for the year, I'm allowing myself a little extra leeway.
I hope you'll give me grace. 
This is far more than five minutes. 
But I have things I want to say.

This week: Reflect

Go 

Time is a tricky thing. It moves so achingly slow in our childhood, and so frighteningly fast as we get old. Is it Latin? Or Faust? O run slowly, slowly, horses of the night! I didn’t quite grasp it the first time I read it. Now, I know all too well.

Sometimes the gears turn for good, and one things leads to another; one step follows one more, and God leads you out of a desert into the next Promised Land – the next thing He has planned for you.

This time last year, I was counting every minute our heater ran – measuring the meter of our small amount of dollars against the temperature gauge; demanding that we all put on “just one more layer” to try and keep the house at sixty-five degrees. Brrrr.

This time last year, I was only barely opening the door to an online community that would later welcome me in with open arms; where friendships would blossom; where I would see God work and lives change. Twitter scared me.

This time last year, I sat in cramped into a tiny classroom chair listening to a tired, well-meaning teacher tell me again how socially dysfunctional my daughter was; how she had no more ideas to teach her with; and how she wondered if our girl would be able to progress academically because of all of her issues. I was so angry.

Time can pass slowly in the desert. Heat overwhelms and the dry dusty reality of no water and no relief from the relentless onslaught of the elements make you cry empty tears of despair and longing for greener hills and kinder climes. But God finds us in these desert times, and when we are stripped down of all that we do not need to bear – stripped down so that all we can do is look up and look to Him for our daily bread and daily breath – sometimes, those are the times when He chooses to move mountains most miraculously.

This year,
I’m still chilled – but that may be a permanent wintertime situation for me. C’est la vie. The heat blasts away, and the only thing I’m watching is a roaring fire and toasty toes as my family stays comfortably safe within these walls. The dollars are not tremendous, but I am working and so is my husband. I breathe thanks for the eucharisteo that has happened here.

This year, the Twitter party does not frighten me to pieces as it once did. I fling myself randomly and joyfully in and out of conversations. I share lives with women I’ve never met through email, Facebook, Twitter, Voxer, Instagram (did we mention #bossysocialmedia?) and it is joy upon joy to have them in my life. I have met one who is close to my heart, write snail mail to others, blog with them, and am working on a special God-Sized dream project for a very  special friend who is miles away, but who feels like she’s right next door. I've had the opportunity to partner with them to do amazing like Laundry in South Africa and projects for mercy's sake in Kenya.

This year, I sat in a slightly larger classroom chair and watched a tremendously gifted teacher spill wonderful secrets about my girl. She brings such good things to the table. She’s a fantastic reader – above her level. She’s a good writer. She’s a great helper. She's doing well and she's going places. I almost cried happy as I sat there – overwhelmed and over time as we talked and smiled and shared. Then burst with pride and shared relentlessly online and watched over forty friends like and comment in support of my family and my girl.

In a few short days, I’ll be home again – home where my heart will always beat; home where my pulse thrums – and it will go both quicker than I like and at the same time, slower. I don’t want to chase time. I want to release myself to simmer and soak in each moment – capturing it not on film or online (though I’ll surely be doing that to), but on the canvass of my heart, where all of these things I do: waiting, hurting, laughing, aching, learning, praying, growing, singing, screaming, smiling, blending, being – embed themselves into the lifeblood of my heart and being.

I am becoming.

Stop









How to Join
Want to know about Lisa Jo Baker, how Five Minute Friday got started, and how to participate? All the details are here. No editing or second guessing. 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 the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.

I'd love to connect with you some more - stop on by the Three Bees Facebook Page or connect with me on Twitter @3BeesBlueBonnet. Let's continue the conversation! 

14 comments :

  1. Wow, sounds like your year of desolate/ desert...has started blossoming...we are in a new season too...a new season of change and i'm excited...i'm glad that God is doing new things in your life and enlarging your horizons...leading you beside green pastures and filling you with His hope...didn't David say that he was certain he would still see the "goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living?"...Love

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Summer - you just referenced one of my "life verses" here! Psalm 27:13 & 14. And yes, David does say this, and it's a promise I've been hanging onto through several desert situations in my life. "I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart!" I pray that your heart will be strengthened in the new direction He is taking you and your family in - prayers for that journey, friend!

      Delete
  2. I love this. Every bit of it. :) And I'm thankful for you, friend, and the blessing you are to this community! Smiling for you and praising God for all He's done...and is continuing to do. Wishing you a blessed Christmas and looking forward to linking up again in January! (Though maybe we'll bump into each other at Behind the Scenes?) ;) (((hugs)))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah Mel - I remember seeing your name when I first joined this community. So tentative. My introvert self still hiding behind walls behind the screen that no one can see past anyway. I saw your smiling face and thought, "she'd never want to talk to me." And now I think of all the encouraging comments you've left, how you've lifted me up, how much I love reading your posts, how much I love seeing you lead in the community and I think - "what was I thinking? what did I know?" It's been a joy to unfold all these friendships, and I always look forward to reading and sharing with you. Wishing you and T & M and blessed Christmas as well. Behind the Scenes? Absolutely!

      Delete
  3. What a wonderful reflection on the past year! And funny, when I clicked on your name to see what you had written, because I wanted to, not because I came after you, I thought that Rebekah probably has so many comments and pageviews, she's one of the social butterflies of the FMF community. Reading this, I see that it was not always so. But it certainly is true now. You are becoming more yourself, more who He created you to be. And it is marvelous to behold!

    I'll make it easy for you. Here's my FMF contribution: http://wp.me/p3RhKW-9O As always, glad to have stopped by!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rachael - oh my! You may be the first person to ever call me a social butterfly. Love it. I'm probably far more social on screen than in real life, but I do love this community so, and have been so blessed by the friends I've made here. How many times in the past year have we been FMF neighbors? Too many to count! I love your post about reflection - I remember writing one like that about my own girl. Thank you for your always encouraging comments and the grace for parenting that you share so freely!

      Delete
  4. Loved reading this!! Blessed to see the blessings in others. I only discovered you fairly recently in the FMF group. Your posts are wonderful.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow what a year you have had !! I love see all that God has done in your life and then think of how He has done just as much in mine. Before I joined in on the #bossysocialmedia I never realized how connected I could be to people I had never met. How much love, care and concern could pass between us. I'm so thankful for you, friend, and the blessing you have become to me and to this community!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well now... you KNOW how much I love this - every. single. part. of it! So excited for your trip 'home'... praying you are able to stay Present... and maybe after the holidays I will add Voxer to my #bossysocialmedia list of things to try to be the boss of me! <3

    Love you! (and insert just a little more gushing for Faithie girl!)
    ~K~

    ReplyDelete
  7. CHILLS!! I have chills such an amazing part, love the whole post,I can relate to the add another layer!! But the part that got me was your daughter, how heart breaking that a teacher would say that.... chokes me up. So thankful that your daughter has a wonderful teacher that can see her beauty. Love you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I need to proof read my comments, such an amazing post! Haaa

      Delete
  8. This is one for you to print out and keep close for when dark days threaten. This is your ebenezzar my friend! Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rebekah, thanks for sharing your heart over the last year with us. I'm so grateful for the way God has provided for you this year. Enjoy a wonderful visit home, friend!

    ReplyDelete
  10. My heart could burst for this post- to see the amazing faithful God side by side, hand in hand, walking with the both of us this year and bringing us to a blessed friendship. He is so big and great and merciful, and to see that poured out in your life is tremendous.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for the kindess of your comment. I pray your patience with the word verification. I've had such troubles with spammers lately. Thank you for grace. I look forward to reading all the comments and responding. I appreciate you!