Five Minute Friday: Brave

Brave? 

Sometimes brave is just putting one foot in front of the other--hoping and praying that things will be better with persistence. 

Sometimes brave is stepping out onto an unknown path.  What if it's rocky?  What if it's muddy and slows me down?  What if it's dim and hard to find?  What if?

But to be truly brave, I have to turn my face into the wind, into that which terrifies me, into that which pushes me back.  Like an airplane which takes advantage of the velocity of the oncoming wind to create lift, I must see the challenge as a means by which I can fly.

And so I turn my face into the wind.

Five Minute Friday: Empty

I'm tired of feeling bad about feeling empty. I'm developing a new attitude about it. Instead of seeing “empty” as the end of something, I resolve to see it as the beginning of something: a state of portent, of hope. And so I must set about filling the emptiness.

Shall I fill it with cheap trinkets, kitschy, flashy, and, in the end, shallow? I hope not, although that is certainly the easier path.

I would like to fill it slowly, with carefully selected, worthy treasures: things that feed my happiness, my intellect, my soul. Yes. Ah, yes. So how?

It is the quest of a lifetime.

Here I go.

Five Minute Friday: Ache

An ache, dull and persistent and unrelenting, thrums in my brain.  An ache that throbs away in the background of my days like a heartbeat.  An ache to which I am becoming too accustomed, too complacent.  This ache is not from excess but from absence, like the phantom pain of a missing limb.  They are gone; the words are gone, and I fear they will not return.

For more on the Five Minute Friday topic ACHE, visit thegypsymomma!

Five Minute Friday-- Grit

Isn't it interesting how the thing that wears things down—sand, grit-- is an essential element in holding things together? When coarse, it can scour away great amounts, leaving ruts and scars and pits. But, as the grit becomes finer, those ruts smooth out, those scars fade, until, at its finest, grit polishes what was once dull and rough into some smooth, with a fine sheen. But the grit cannot effect this change on its own. It requires application—the tool of grit must be applied to an object with the appropriate amount of pressure, before, finally, painfully, that sheen gloriously appears.

Wow, rough, rough, rough.  It needs a little grit applied to it, doesn't it?  This is my little contribution to the Five Minute Friday meme. 

Praying for Your Heart's Desire

My sticky-noted copy . . .

Your 100 Day Prayer
John I. Snyder
Thomas Nelson Publishers

“Whether we pray for one day, one hundred days, or one thousand days, let's do it the way God wants us to.”

John I. Snyder

Let's get it out of the way: I really like this book. At this point, I should reveal that I received a review copy of this book from the publisher. I am, however, under no obligation to give a favorable review, even though I shall. I like this book enough to have stuck multicolored sticky notes throughout the book, and I keep picking it up to re-read passages and affix more sticky notes. I will be buying copies (yes, plural) of this book for gifts. Yes, I really like it.


I truly did not think I would since the author, in the chapter called “How To Use This Book,” encourages the reader to ask for anything: health, happiness, even a Lamborghini! That statement elicited a groan and I expected one hundred days of self-centered money-grubbing justified by out-of-context Bible verses. I could not have been more wrong. The author, a Presbyterian minister and founder of online faith community Community321.com, goes directly to the crux of the matter of prayer:

“Do you keep laying your plans at Jesus' feet then picking them up again and trying to do things your way?”

Your 100 Day Prayer is not your usual pop-culture pabulum. It's a combination of a devotional book and prayer journal whose purpose is to lead the believer into praying the way God wants. Beginning with the first day's lesson, called “In the Beginning,” each of the days contains a Scripture passage, a devotional reading, and a prayer goal, just as many other devotional guides do. The real treasure of this little book comes at the end of each day's prayer in a section called “Today's Progress.” This encourages the believer to reflect on the reading and on the prayer experience. This reflective approach leads the believer to examine not only the content of prayer, but the process. The believer is led into more and more substantive practices through sections entitled “The Power of Persistence,” “The Silent Heaven,” and “When God Says No.” The key to this journey is in the transformation of our “heart's desire” from the temporal (a shiny new car?) to the eternal. It leads the believer to the bedrock understanding: believers' hearts should desire that the will of the Father be manifested through them. And that's the prayer God always answers.

While the prayer warrior has already figured out that truth, this book would be helpful to younger believers, especially those who find their prayers seemingly ignored or denied. It would be helpful to the mature believers who may find themselves somewhat “adrift” in their prayer life. Those battling trying times would find it a comfort. I found it a blessing.

Help for a Healing Heart

I'm not sure what I expected from Stained Glass Hearts by Patsy Clairmont. The subtitle, Seeing Life from a Broken Perspective, certainly seemed to apply to anyone who has lived a life which contained disappointments. So, I kicked back, cracked it open, and dug in. To start with, the author's writing style is very, very chatty. I could almost hear her. I really enjoyed, at the end of every chapter, her suggestions for healing activities: Scripture, music, art, literature, museums and the like.

Clairmont is very personable, seemingly very open about her own struggles with agoraphobia. She seems incessantly cheery, almost to the point of being flip. In fact that became a problem for me; I could not imagine sharing such a book with a suffering friend. I almost put it down. But somewhere around the middle, in a chapter appropriately entitled “Stained Glass Prayer,” the author truly let the reading have a glimpse of her broken heart. I began to get a real sense of the caming that holds her broken heart together: “ . . . when we lose our joy, the Spirit replaces it with endurance, that indestructible internal insistence to keep on keeping on.” And so, finally, I saw how the Almighty pieced together her broken heart through prayer, reading, poetry, nature, and grace. That is what I needed to hear.

Would I share this book with a broken-hearted friend? Probably not. But I would certainly share it with one whose heart is healing.

Buttermilk Sky