Welcome to this week’s edition of the Five Minute Friday link-up! Whether you have a blog, an Instagram or Facebook profile, or a good ol’ fashioned pen and paper, we’re so glad you’re here!
Every week we gather around a single word prompt and freewrite for five minutes flat.
Learn more about the link-up and how it works here.
Also: Join the FMF email list to be among the first to know about all the upcoming writerly happenings!
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: MANY
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.Â
Disclaimer: This post is a bit of a downer . . . Sometimes that happens.Â
This past week, the horrendous trend of mass shootings struck closer to home — about an hour and a half away, to be exact, at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Three students were killed and five were critically injured.
It just keeps happening.
That same day, I saw a post about a rock on campus that was painted black with the words, “How many more?” spray painted in red.
Photo credit: Seth Wells, Twitter, https://twitter.com/SethTVSports/status/1625501041033871366
How many more?
How long, O Lord?
Months and months of war in Ukraine. Tens of thousands killed by an earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
More shootings.
How many more? How long, O Lord?
Needless to say, it’s been a heavy week. We know people on the MSU campus and have other friends with various connections to the university.
It seems every time I look at or listen to the news, it’s just more tragedy and trauma.
How long, O Lord?
Sometimes all I can pray is, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
May these devastating events give us a deeper longing for His return and a greater anticipation of the day when there will be “no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4).
He is coming soon.
Amen?
STOP.Â
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BREAKING NEWS
I’ve been wanting to offer this workshop for about three years now, and it’s finally happening!
How to Self-Publish Your Book on Amazon KDP
Live, Step-by-Step Tutorial
Wednesday, March 1st, 2023
12:00-1:30pm EST (9am PST)
I’ll be sharing my screen and walking step-by-step through exactly what to do to publish your book on Amazon’s free KDP platform. We’ll cover the steps for both e-books and paperbacks, so don’t miss out!
There will be a recording but only for those who register in advance.
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite on the prompt, MANY, below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
The bad stuff follows, blow on blow,
and pundits always call the blame,
but this I feel and this I know,
that there’s safety in the name
of the Christ, once dead, now risen
from the tomb’s cold dark embrace.
Maybe this world is a prison
in which at end we have to face
our torture and our execution,
the smug smiles of the ones who kill;
let baptism be ablution,
and let’s surrender to God’s will
with the truth that death’s raw pain
is the highest form of gain.
Four minutes fifteen.
Ukraine, plus the 33.000 who died in the earthquakes, so many lost and dying, and yet, we a have:
Students at Asbury University — a Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky — have been praying and worshiping in their chapel around the clock for over a week.
Hope springs eternal means that it comes from the Father above.
What a glorious day that will be.
I can’t wait.
Such a sad, sad thing especially when it can be prevented! We can only pray for wisdom for those in power and compassion for those profiting off the sale of guns.