Hey FMF friends!

Welcome to another round of our weekly writing prompt link-up.

If you’re new here, we’re so glad you’re here! You can learn more about the link-up and how it works by clicking here.

This week we’re in for a real treat because the one and only Alia Joy agreed to share some words just for us!

I’ve admired Alia’s writing for a loooonnnng time . . . even before I started hosting the Five Minute Friday community.

Alia has a soft spot for FMF since she used to participate in the link-ups back in the day.

This past week she posted on Twitter:

I had the privilege of meeting Alia in person exactly a year ago this week, at the Festival of Faith & Writing in Grand Rapids:

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Alia’s new book yet, I highly encourage you to do so. It’s called Glorious Weakness: Discovering God In All We Lack,and it really is glorious.

Affiliate links have been used in this post.

Our prompt this week was inspired by the release of Alia’s book . . .

This week’s Five Minute Friday writing prompt is: LACK

Here’s Alia:

I set out to make sense of my world. I climb aboard in my youth, when I claim Jesus as my Lord and Savior and scribble epiphanies in my NIV Study Bible.

I launch across the velvet sea, set my sails to catch wind that hasn’t blown. I linger in a calm that I call boring, seemingly going nowhere. But my limbs long to feel the cool of waves, I want saltwater breath and a sun-bronzed brow.

I wait for adventure, for movement, for the great Why of it all. I’m restless for the next horizon. 

Compass in hand, its face cracked and wobbling toward true north, I follow the arrow, its arms bent like a weary cross. I scavenge for beauty, for wonder, for my final destination to arrive at and map out for others. I want to be Captain not crew.

The lack of movement leaves me feeling adrift with no purpose. Wasn’t a good Christian supposed to get stuff done? Weren’t we supposed to bring in the big haul, our nets full? Weren’t we supposed to walk on water and not be afraid. 

So I heaved my breast and swung my arms until I could feel every corded fiber of bicep and tricep, pectoral and trapezius sectioned off like my anatomy was a puzzle of burning pieces. Like I was a girl dismantled and scattered while God shuffled and tried to recreate the picture promised on the front of the puzzle box. And that spasm, the ache of shoveling mounds of sea like I was a girl trying to move a mountain with nothing more than an oar and blistered and bloody palms, it wasn’t enough to stay afloat in the bobbing arms of despair.

I took to paddling when the wind didn’t blow enough to displace a single strand of my hair. I didn’t know God had anchored me. I didn’t know I didn’t need to make my palms bleed. Jesus did that for me.

I didn’t realize I could curl up next to Jesus in the stern and find rest.

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Alia Joy is an INFJ and Enneagram 4w5 . . . so it’s complicated. Wife and mom, coffee-dependent, grace saved, cynical idealist learning fluency in her native tongue, the language of hope. “My pen is my weapon of choice to fight off the darkness when depression looms, it is my compass for navigating my messy mind, my even messier heart. Writing is my wilderness and my home. I write the reminders to find my way back to the heart of God. I write to feel God’s pleasure.”

Her first solo book, Glorious Weakness: Discovering God In All We Lack is available on Amazon.

You can follow Alia Joy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

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BONUS:

Watch my video interview with Alia Joy on topics of overcoming fear and imposter syndrome as writers here:

Before you go, I also wanted to make sure you know about the EXCLUSIVE discount that Fistbump Media is offering to the Five Minute Friday community:

Through Tuesday, April 16th, use code FMFABS at checkout to get 25% off the already marked down launch sale price of Fistbump Media’s new course, The Awesome Blogger Seminar:

Affiliate links used above.

Join the link-up by adding your own five minute free write below:

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