Five Minute Friday - Nothing

On Fridays a bunch of brave writers gather here to all spend 5 collective minutes writing on a single prompt. It’s a great way to catch your breath at the end of a long week. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

This week: Nothing

Go

If I add up all the echoing moments
All the times when despair and desolation
Chase hard –

Like a cold shot of iced tequila down
An already burning throat

Like falcon on prey –
Plummeting, bullet-fast out of the steel-blue sky

Like the inevitable hurl of an avalanche
Over the lip of an unsuspecting cliff

All those times that leave me shaking; autumn’s last leaf
Clinging to the threads of summer's life
I am buried
Under the torrent of snow
Under the onslaught of feathers
Under the drunken blast
I am withered to the smallest bit of nothing.

This is all the time.
This is where I live.
This is what lies behind the curtain.
This is the lie.

And it lies,
Rancorous and hard –
A cutting razor’s edge that tears
Demanding belief
Pushing acquiescence
Believe.

But in the moment before it all closes
Over my head I hear you.
You, Who have never left.
My One Defense, My Righteousness 

Sifting through the interminable mess
The nothing I would be without You.
And your words speak calm,
They speak true,
They speak a refining fire over me

So much so that darkness flees –
Doubt flies –

The vast expanse of nothing that was,
Is now
Nothing
But the fountain of grace;
Flowing from the mercy seat.
From your heart;
Broken once and again for me
(even if it was only me)
Every hour I need you 

And so it goes.
My struggle to believe.
And so it goes on.
Your transformative work –
To take nothing
(as you did in the beginning)
And make a miracle –
Bringing life from the dark.
Holiness is Christ in me
My story for your glory.
Nothing but that.

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.

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