It’s Five Minute Friday again! People all over the world blogging on the same topic on the same day for just five minutes and linking up at Lisa Jo’s place. Today’s topic: Song.

Go.

What is it about a song that seems to freeze a memory in time?

The music begins and your heart recognizes the tune. Suddenly, you are there. You are back in that place where friendships are whole and love is forever.

There is comfort in the chorus. It’s as if you could reach out and touch the people from your past. You can hear the laughter of days gone by. You can still recall the place, the time – the feelings from that moment.

Time has marched on but that song is still the same.

You can sing every word without missing a beat. The lyrics are etched in your heart.

Then, the song ends and it is like waking up from an all too pleasant dream. The curtain comes down and the memory vanishes into nothingness. And, for the rest of the day, you find yourself longing to hear that song again.

Stop.

It’s Five Minute Friday again! People all over the world blogging on the same topic on the same day for just five minutes and linking up at Lisa Jo’s place. Today’s topic:Wonder.

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I know the true meaning of Christmas. I am well aware that it is about far more than ribbons and bows and eggnog. (Side note: If you curled up your nose at the mention of eggnog, I’ll be honest, I just do not understand you.) I know all of the right answers. Yet, in the chaos that is life, has something gotten lost?

I know the meaning, but have I lost the mystery?

I have the wisdom, but have I lost the wonder?

I want a little bit of that wonder back. I want to, once again, be astonished by the coming of the Christ child. Could anything be more worthy of my wonder than God wrapped in flesh coming to make beauty from my mess?

God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. – Colossians 1:27

How much fun is it to give someone the perfect gift? You wait anxiously for the opening of the box. You try to act casually but, inside, you want to jump across the room and help them tear into the package because you know they are just going to love. it. There is some pride involved in being able to give just the right gift, isn’t there?

Can you even imagine God’s excitement as the days drew near for His Son to enter into our world? God watched as people stumbled around in the darkness. Don’t you think He whispered words of wonder in their ears? Hold on. It’s almost time. The prophets foretold the mystery and wonder. He is coming. Messiah is coming.

Then, one night, a star shown and a shepherd quaked. A young girl cried out and God beamed with pride.

Christ came.

Christ – the wonder of it all.

It’s Five Minute Friday again! People all over the world blogging on the same topic on the same day for just five minutes and linking up at Lisa Jo’s place. Today’s topic: Grasp.

Go.

I have control issues. I want my bath towels folded a certain way. I like my sandwiches cut on an angle. I prefer the toilet paper roll to go over and not under. Come on, don’t act like it doesn’t matter to you. Okay, maybe it really doesn’t matter. I like to control these things because, at least in my mind, they are controllable.

So much of life, however, is completely beyond my ability to manipulate. I grasp for control and it continually slips through my fingers. I can not make the people I love make good choices. I can not give that mama back her baby. I can not prevent my children from ever suffering heartache. Yet, I spend my days grasping for control of those things. And, at the end of the day, I am faced with the reality that I am not the one who holds the whole world in my hands.

I have desperately clawed and grasped to hang onto relationships that God, for His own reasons, was bringing to an end. Even with God, I sometimes fight for control. Can I just tell you now that it is a losing battle? He always wins and He doesn’t desperately grasp for control. It is just His.

I guess, at the end of the day, that is the silliness of it all. I am grasping for something that is God’s. He has complete control of my life and the lives of those I love. He holds it firmly in His grasp. I am like that little child trying to pry her daddy’s hand open to retrieve something I am not meant to have.

Truth be told, it is better for Him to be running things than me and I do not have to understand everything. He has my life firmly in His grasp and I do believe I will leave it there.

Stop.

It’s Five Minute Friday again! People all over the world blogging on the same topic on the same day for just five minutes and linking up at Lisa Jo’s place. Today’s topic: Focus.

Go.

My focus is rarely where it should be these days.

Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the One I love. That is so me. I have a restless heart, for sure.

I get caught up in circumstances, trivial pursuits and other people’s issues and tend to lose sight of what really matters. I call it multitasking and, if I’m honest, I take great pride in it. Where is the line, though, between multitasking and simply an inability to focus on one thing that really matters?

At the end of the day, I have checked off numerous items but what have I really accomplished. And what have I taught my children?

Do I want them to be busy and know they can multitask? Or to be still and know He is God?

One of my favorite pastors once said, when asked how he wrote so many sermons, “I just take every passage and run to the cross.” Jesus. That was his focus.

Whatever my day holds, be it trials or triumphs, I want my focus to be Jesus.

Not Jesus and…

Not Jesus, in addition to…

Just Jesus.

Stop