Welcome to our weekly blog link-up for Five Minute Friday!
Thank you to all who have prayed and sent encouraging comments and messages as my husband and I have been recovering from COVID. It’s been a long haul and still feels a lot like two steps forward, one step back — but we are MUCH better than we were two weeks ago, and moving in the right direction. Grateful for each of you!
If you’re new here, welcome! We gather around a single word prompt every week and write for five minutes flat.
Sound like fun?
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This week’s FMF writing prompt is: BROKEN
I have a lot of words this week. Maybe it’s because I’ve been cooped up in bed with COVID for weeks on end, without enough energy to even lift my laptop. Maybe it’s because there has been a lot going on in the world, a lot to process.
This past week alone started with a raging wildfire on Table Mountain in Cape Town. Many of you know I lived in Cape Town for over ten years and my husband and three children were all born in South Africa. Thankfully there was no loss of human life involved in this fire, but there was substantial damage to historic buildings, including the University of Cape Town, residential homes, and a student residence on the property where I stayed during my first few weeks in the country. University students and other Cape Town residents were evacuated from their dorms and homes with very little notice.
Then came the historic verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin. I turned on the TV and made my husband and kids come watch with me. Guilty. On all three counts. I just kept saying, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” It’s telling that I would be so shocked that a cop was finally convicted after killing a citizen. I turned to my husband after turning off the TV and asked him how he was feeling. I presumed this news would affect him differently than it affected me, since he is a black man. He was quiet for a moment, then said something to the effect of, “It just makes me sad, any time I see someone led off to jail. This world is just so broken.”
STOP.
My five-minute timer is up, but there is so much more that could be said. I am tempted to break the “rules” and keep writing, but perhaps I will leave it at that. This world is broken. Sometimes we just need to sit with that reality and lament.
I hope you’ll come back next week for a follow-up post, where I plan to tie in some words of hope. For today, we acknowledge the brokenness.
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
Another knee, another neck,
another Black man choking.
Another wail, a mother’s wreck,
another love lies broken.
Another quick-unholstered gun,
another “Stop! Now turn!”
Another Black man tried to run
from what he didn’t earn.
Another grave waits on a hill
‘neath another leaden sky;
another hole for friends to fill,
where another friend will lie.
Another knee, another day,
and still God has not turned away.
Amen. The world is so broken. It’s hard to sit with it, though, isn’t it? I’m learning to listen.
this broken world…. sometimes… sometimes I long for Jesus’ return…. but not … not quite yet….
Brokenness seems to be pressing in on all sides.
Too much opposing pressure on a thing causes it to break. How much brokenness could be avoided by two sides releasing that opposing pressure and working together to make the thing better? But instead we all run to our corners and shout and scream at each other. I thank God that He is still with us, still guiding the ship, still in control. And I pray He will give me ears to hear and a softened heart.
I’m amazed at your husband’s response, such large heartedness is rare.
Hope you are all better soon, Kate.
I don’t have a blog yet… so here’s my first 5 Minute Friday writing here. Hope that’s okay!
BROKEN
Coming from a cowgirl perspective, the word “broken” doesn’t carry the same connotations that it might in an urbane setting. “Wild and unbroken” is an attitude or status that society celebrates. To be broken seems weak and lame, boring. Wild horses are photographed and hung on our walls as statements of power and beauty and originality, all worthy descriptions, but I am here to tell you that in all actuality, the life of a wild horse, is anything but glamorous!
First of all is the struggle for survival. Heavy snows make it hard to paw for their food supply, or to travel through deep drifts. Even the melting snow in the spring is a curse before it’s a blessing, turning to hard frozen crusts at night which cut open heels as they dig for a blade of grass and a mouthful of snow. Hungry wolves, and starvation constant predators.
Secondly, while it seems so romantic to not need anyone or to rely on anything it makes daily living such a hard and unnecessary battle. The hand of the cowboy or cowgirl, at least the good ones, just seek to care for the needs of their animals. Trimming hooves, so a horse is able to get around better and has less foot problems; floating teeth (filing them down) so a horse can eat easier, and actually get more nutrition; worming, grooming, vet care, all of these things are done for the broke horses to give them a better life, and what does the cowgirl require in return for the love and care? A partnership, submission.
What good is a wild horse? I know that’s not a popular question. They’re beautiful! They’re inspiring! Yes, but they have no spirit of service, nothing to give of themselves just self preservation.
Give me the broke old pony, who walks on eggshells when they sense a child or nervous passenger, and then is ready to rip with a seasoned rider on board. Herding cattle, checking fences, transportation, and sometimes even double broke to ride AND drive! Like in the book of James in the Bible, we are able to control a big, strong horse with a bit. Submission. Useful to the cowboy, to the Creator.
Wildness sounds fun, sounds authentic, sounds beautiful, but I SEEK brokenness and submission. I want to be useful! I want to serve a purpose other than self preservation, and I want to be cared for by my Creator. I want to be, broken.