Friendship and Connection

Have Missed taking part in the Five Minute Friday posts!

So writing today for five minutes on the prompt "present." Go!

 I've struggled with the meaning of friendships over the years. Wondering if I could put my finger on what my needs are, and what I want to be for others. I know I am deeply loyal and faithful, I care, love blessing my friends and holding space for them. I believe in sitting on the couch, letting your friend cry and loving them in the mess of it all. I believe in connecting, I'm not superficial or surface. I can't be, it's just not me. I'm not intense or crazy, and I only allow a handful of people to be called friend. 

Inevitably though, people claim to look for friendship, but cannot commit to connecting. We as a society, have become afraid of connection. So people stay surface - level. They don't impart the gift of connection, which is my definition of friendship.

Even as I pen these words, I'm struck by a deep revelation. My word for the year - given to me by God - is "connection."

Let me tell you, when I got this word at the beginning of 2020, I was kinda confused. I had no context or words, no frame of reference for the word connection. Now, some 10 months later in a Covid world, I have so much context for the word connection. I'm also now aware that my friendships have to come with connection. If they don't, I struggle with it and that's okay too. It is our presence and our ability to go deeper than the surface that can cause a friend to become more than an acquaintance, I believe this is where true friendship begins....

STOP!

Linking with Five Minute Friday 

 

I've Been Challenged - FMF

My Five Minute Friday Check - In! Go.

The passed few months I've been challenged. At first I just started struggling to cope and feeling easily overwhelmed and tired. A trip to my doctor and she diagnosed me with adrenal fatigue. We had a frank chat about my life and she booked me off for a week. That week was truly a blessing, although it was hard at first. I'm intuitive by nature and I live very consciously, especially of my own feelings and thoughts. That week, I asked God to simply hold me, and not to give up on me. It was a simple and honest prayer. And I allowed my heart to lead. When my soul was telling me to rest, I rested. When it felt angry, I allowed myself the freedom to feel the intensity of it. I stopped stuffing feelings away and started paying attention, not surviving as we all do, when we have to routinely go to work, do our chores and our duties. I started paying attention. To myself. One of the biggest challenges has been realising that my own burn out is not caused by being overworked, or having too much to do, it's cause by my own internal desires to be the best I can be at everything. That perfectionist voice, keeps us from resting inside. No matter how many pockets of peace one takes, there comes a cloud, a voice always saying "get it right." I'm a lot better, but I'm still being challenged. Still figuring this out, still struggling at times. 

Stop!
Linking with Five Minute Friday
 

I Dared to Draw Near - Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday! Writing on the prompt "distant." 

Distant. Far in the distance, the curtain blows softly with the wind. I draw near, sandals on my dusty feet, across the floor of the wilderness to where we have been temporarily banished. Far from the promised land, the place promised to our ancestors. I draw near, slowly, will God see me?

The curtain still blows as I slip gently through the alley of tents watching the tabernacle in the distance, the place where God dwells. If He is so Holy and so Mighty, so Loving, yet so filled with justice and mercy, surely He will see me.

I pause at the place I saw from across the space of landscape. Here I am, hineni. Moses stands at the left of the curtain, his grey beard curling against his chin, his kind, focused eyes stare at me. "Moses our leader," I start filled with conviction, "my father died in the wilderness for his own sin, and he had no sons only daughters. We do not believe he should die and have his name wiped out forever just because he had no sons, give us the land promised to our ancestors, the land of inheritance so we might raise our families there."

Moses pauses and whispers. I cannot hear his words, but I am used to seeing him mumbling, talking to God at every second of every hour of the day. He nods, sparkling eyes as he looks at me, the daughter of Zelophehad. "Yes," he proclaims, "God says yes..."

STOP!

I wrote this while thinking and reflecting on Numbers, where the daughters of Zelophehad approach Moses and ask God to give them an inheritance. The beauty of the original Hebrew words used int his passage expresses the delight of Yahweh, as His daughters ask Him for an eternal law to be passed. He says yes to their request and history actually changes because they dared to speak up! Our God is waiting for His daughters to speak up, not for themselves but for others so that the world as we know it and history itself will be forever changed, granting greater freedom to many.

I dared to Draw Near - FMF 

Acting to Change Unreasonable Things

More recently God has been speaking to me from the precious beatitudes, encouraging me through the words of Matthew 5 verse 9 which reads “blessed are the peace makers for they will all be called children of God.” (NIV) While reading this verse a month ago, I kept on seeing the word change maker in my mind instead of peace maker, so I prayerfully dug deep in to the words found here. I discovered that the Greek word here for peace maker, is a word that means to make or do something, it’s an action, expressed as something tangible and active. While the word for peace, goes back to the holistic Hebrew word “shalom,” which is deeper than just peace, it means wholeness, welfare, prosperity, harmony, complete, and the biblical idea of peace is not the absence of war, as we imagine it to be. In fact, you cannot be a peacemaker without stepping in to conflict at times.....

This is a Challenging and Inspiring Post I wrote over at Lisa van Engens Blog, this week! Click the link to read the rest of the article. 

Acting to Change Unreasonable Things 

I Turn Inwardly and Ask

Five Minute Friday Post! Writing today on the writing prompt well for 5 minutes of unedited, free thinking and flowing writing! Here goes!

It is well with my soul. I imagine singing in a wooden pew among a gathering of like minded believers. Place my hand on my heart and sing about my soul, it is well. Yet, is it? I turn inward and ask her, how are you actually doing today?

She smiles back, thank you for asking. 

I pause in the moment, with myself, real and open. How are you doing? That makes my innermost being smile, thank you for checking in.

Slightly tired, sensing Gods goodness and Love. Exhausted in some ways, but eager for rest and peace. Imagining a retreat, lying in green fields and listening to sheep. These imaginings make my soul complete. So inwardly she answers me. I am slightly tired but hopeful, held upright because of Loves Grace. 

STOP!

Linking up with Five Minute Friday 
And The Grove
  

Rhythm's Different Design

A new rhythm. I found this truth swimming up to my brain and in to my conscious mind. Planted there by God as something of an answer, comfort and direction. I’ve had to learn to swim now that the current’s changed. I’ve had to adapt to new rhythms, as shifts happen in my life. Taking on a new radio show, and learning to fill in new paperwork each week (taking hours at a time), being consistent to post my show to social media, and prepare my guests and notes. It was hard not to get lost beneath the sheer weight of it, and the shift. Growing pains, as I learned through the struggle with my overworked and overwhelmed emotions. Work shadowing older presenters, learning from their talents and giftings, their years of experience, all the while praying God make me a sponge, let me soak and learn. 

I’m blessed to stand here, with no previous experience in radio, this door opened with such Divine Force, I prayed for weeks and then stepped through it. A blessed stepping. Only to discover once I had stepped, that something inside of me was well prepared and ready, eager and waiting. A part of me was already awake, though I had not consciously perceived it, born to use the microphone across the frequency waves to make a lasting change, to be a voice, even a small one.

Still, finding a new rhythm, has challenged me deep in my core. Pressures of life demand that we have many responsibilities and priorities. A week ago, I was led by The Holy Spirit at 1am to be still and journal. So journal I did. The sacred moments of connecting with ink and paper, the sound of gentle writing on paper thin, the moment where truth gems pour from the soul on to the paper. Right there, meeting my heart on white pages, such joy. Meaningful, the Holy Spirit led me to write, what is meaningful to you? It’s the very question we ask ourselves with happiness, what is meaningful enough to say yes to, and what is meaningful enough to say no to. I sat wading through the water of thought and conversation with God, in to the open lake of discovery. I am still struggling with the amount of paperwork and pressure to complete these tasks on top of ministry tasks that overtake me daily, yet within the grind that sometimes wearies me, I am more aware of what is meaningful, so I am not spreading myself out too thinly. And I miss this space, this blog space. My personal quiet space of white space where I can share small parts of my heart in whispers that feel safe. I hope to climb back in to that white space, because this is what’s meaningful. And I hope with clasped hands held out in prayer that I will see such light and hope come from this radio show, testimonies of changed lives and deeper hope. Hope against all Hope.

The Ocean of Emotion - FMF

Five Minute Friday, this weeks prompt is "ocean," (totally love this prompt!) Go!

I struggle beneath the weight of emotion. Sometimes these emotions are anger, or anxiety, other times it's just a profound sense of hopeless or joy. Emotions are oceans and in a single drop of the ocean is a plethora of different things, but each thing has life. Life is everywhere, it's all around me, most of all it's within me, Life and this Life was manifest to give me sure abundant Life. In every emotion, there can be life, as it reveals something different beneath the surface.

I've grown aware of the fact that even anxiety is a way of communication. It's our heart saying something, it's our soul pointing to a real fear or thought or belief. Last week I was struck by fear at the thought of standing up in front of strangers and speaking on a unique idea I was nurturing. The fear left my chest tight. When I paused and prayed, inquiring of God as to my own emotion, He showed me what I was really facing. I wasn't scared of the speech or the people (I actually ended up really enjoying myself!), I was still dealing with pain from the way someone close to me had treated me a month ago. The pain translated in to a belief that said "people don't like you, they gonna pretend with you." This was part of the message I received from the month old argument. When I was finally able to realise that, I could go to that internal place with God and I could see life, oceans of life. Believing our Father has only our good at Heart means we can overcome the waves that overwhelm us if we but journey on a rugged ship to that place with Him. 

STOP!

Linking with Five Minute Friday