Five-Minute Friday...WONDER

Wonder is a good thing, I think.  I know we come with a generous capacity for wonder built right in.  Just observe any child for a little while, and you will see.  Questions and curiosity.

If you think about it... Sunrise, Sunset... Right there is cause to wonder aplenty.  Add in every obscure mundanity in between, and the wonder is worth a lifetime.  Unfortunately, it is all too easy to lose.

Somewhere along the line, here come the tainted and the jaded.  Hang out with them long enough, and suddenly everything is taken for granted.  The ante goes up and up and up, and there goes the wonder.  Suddenly, sadly, nothing is enough.  What a shame.

Are wonder and gratitude somehow connected?  I wonder...

Five-Minute Friday....THANK YOU

"Thank you" is one of my favorite things.  From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is always sooooo much to be thankful for! 

Speaking of the sublime, I am thankful for the gift of WORDS.  Oh, how I love words!  I don't even necessarily care if they say anything; I just love to play with them.

Speaking of the ridiculous, I am thankful for the gift of laughter.  Oh, how I love to laugh!  And I am convinced that God has a sense of humor.  How else could He have arranged life as He did!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which happens to be my very favorite holiday, all focused in, as it is, on the things that matter.

I am thankful for the gifts I have been blessed with; I am thankful for the opportunity to be a blessing now and then.

In everything give thanks....I Thessalonians 5:18

Five-Minute Friday...STAY

                                          

I like things to stay as they are.  Most of the time.   Alas, nothing is permanent, nothing stays.

That's the good news and the bad news.  When things are like I like them, I want them to stay.  When they aren't so good, I want them to improve.  But, in spite of all of our modern notions of life, we cannot have it all.

What I really need to come to terms with is that YES = NO.  Did I love my little 2yo's?  Absolutely!  Do I really want them to stay that way forever?  Uh.....no.  Yes to conducting the life and times of a 2yo (or two or three) = No to the luxury of no responsibility.  It's all a big trade-off, everything in its own time.

Nothing stays the same for long.  In Lamentations 3:23, even God's blessings are new every  morning.

What I really need to do is to embrace the philosophy of a long-ago friend who declared that her favorite Scripture was "...and it came to pass," because ... it didn't come to stay.

Five-Minute Friday...QUIET

One of my favorite Bible stories is found in I Kings 19.  I only have five minutes, so to cut to the chase, God is in the stillness and quietness; He does not compete with noise.

It's no wonder God is lost today, with the general noise level that permeates every little piece of our society.  No matter where I go, my head has to be full of sound.  There is first the ubiquitous music.  In the elevator, in the hardware store, on the bus.  I can't even think to read my list in the grocery store.  And in the restaurant... !!!  Like the background murmur isn't enough, now there is a tv in every restaurant.  No, make that a dozen tv's, because heaven forbid someone might sit down where they can't see one.

Everywhere I look, people have little speakers attached to their ears.  They jog to music.   They drive to music.  I have even seen a woman in church with speakers in her ears and her CD player in her hand.  Even more horrifying, I have seen babies and toddlers in the grocery store cart with earphones stuck on their heads.  What could they be listening to?  I'm sure it's all wholesome and everything, but really ... Are we just teaching a whole generation of kids that they must be entertained All. The. Time???  Are we raising children who cannot stand their own company?

"Make a joyful noise..."  Well, there is definitely a time/place for that.  But in the mundane every day-ness of life, I choose "Be still and know...."

Five-Minute Friday...ROOTS

                                   

My husband has roots.  He grew up in the very same house he first came home to from the hospital when he was born.  He lived there right up until he graduated from high school and went away to school.  Then after we got married, we went there to visit his parents.  We slept in his same old room he had lived in all his life.  We moved away, and his parents continued to live there until they went to the nursing home in their old ages.  He knew all the neighbors.  He knew all the neighbors' kids.  He knew all the stories and histories of all the neighbors.  He has roots.

I do not.  By the time I graduated from high school I had moved 14 times that I can count.  A couple of times we stayed in the same neighborhood.  But other times we moved to different cities/states/countries/continents.  Since I got married 38 years ago, I have moved another 16 times.  No records, I know.  My brother, for instance, has outmoved me by far.  But still, it's been enough times to leave me pretty rootless.

One can't have everything, and I have learned a lot from the nomadic life, but I have always thought it would be really cool to have roots.  Those people like my husband . . . if it wasn't a sin, I would envy them.   ;-)

Five-Minute Friday...VOICE

Voices come in every color.  There are screechy ones and soothing ones.  Some are loud, some are whiny, some are commanding, some are just wimpy.  Voices warn.  Some have stories to tell.  Some inspire confidence, some scare, some encourage.  Some yell, some shout, some sing. 

I like the singing ones.  They open a whole other spectrum of their own:  sopranos, bassos, tenors, altos, baritones.  I love to hear the voices together when they are in tune and in sync with each other.  When they're not.... ew, not so much.  That can get kinda horrifying.

Sometimes they are saying things we really should be listening to.  Some voices have important things to say.  Some voices only think they do.  But what every voice wants is...a voice! 

The main thing that I want is to have a voice, which I don't always feel like I have, and the main thing I want from/for my voice, is that I want it to be heard.

Five-Minute Friday...LOOK

 
"LOOK!  A deer!"  That's what my children used to shout while pointing out the window, to DISTRACT me from something they didn't want me to see.  That was a long, long time ago, when they were little kids at home, but it hung on.  It is now a cherished family joke, and still gets dragged out now and then when someone wants to distract.

I am very visually-oriented, so looking is important to me.  I look so much better than I hear, although I'm not sure I always see as well as I look.  I think it's interesting that I can look at something and not see it.  Or that I can look at something and see something different from what the person next to me sees when he looks at the very same thing.  An extra set of eyes is always good to have.

When I look I often see exactly what I want to see.  Or maybe I see only what is glaringly obvious.  If I don't make the effort to discern what I'm really looking at, I see only what is on the outside.  Sometimes that's dangerous, especially when calling judgments on other people.

Every day I am thankful that God doesn't only see what is on the outside of me, but that He sees what is on my heart.  He sees what I really mean and what I really am, which I do not always communicate clearly.