Welcome to our final FMF link-up of October 2023! Someone at my work this week was talking about updating our calendars and availability for the holidays, and it hit me that Thanksgiving is less than a month away!
If you’re new to the Five Minute Friday community, a special welcome to you.
Learn more about the link-up and how it works here.
Also: We’ve got some fun announcements coming up in the next few months, so make sure you’re on the FMF email list!
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: STRIVE
Strive.
I feel this word in my bones. There is a stretching feeling that comes when I think about it, and also maybe a kind of addicted ache, like I want to get rid of it, but I can’t. I want to stop, but I don’t.
I keep striving, keep pushing, keep trying, keep working. Doing more, more, more. And then just a little more.
Striving for acknowledgment, for thanks, for attention, for love, for approval, for peace. Striving to achieve, accomplish, become.
It’s exhausting. And so unnecessary.
If I truly lived like I believed that Christ has done it all and paid it all for me, then I don’t need to strive. I can rest secure in the reality of His love, His forgiveness, His acceptance, His approval, His peace. His achievement.
I certainly can’t strive my way into heaven, that’s for sure. And yet I still catch myself on occasion trying to earn God’s love and favor.
I still catch myself forgetting about the wonder that is grace.
So today and this week and hopefully for a while longer, I’m going to think about this word and what it means and how it has shaped me. How it continues to make me into something I don’t want to be.
What is the opposite of strive? Rest? If so, may we rest in His presence and the reminder that He has already done it all.
STOP.
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FEATURED RESOURCE
When Strivings Cease by Ruth Chou Simons
I confess I haven’t read this book yet, so please take this recommendation with a grain of salt, but I couldn’t help but share it here, as it just fits so perfectly with this prompt and theme:
Have you read it? If so, what did you think?
Affiliate links used in this post
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite on the prompt, STRIVE, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
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If striving ain't the thing to do,
then I'm guilty, dude, as sin,
'cause with what life puts me through,
it's the only way I'm gonna win
the right to face tomorrow's dawn,
to stand square and be counted,
to fight the good fight, keeping on
as my heart-debts have mounted
through the years of memory,
through aeons of joy and pain.
I would not have it in me
to face that all again,
but here I face my final fight
in hopes that it will all come right.
Three minutes flat, but I have no idea what I was really striving for, let alone if I got there.
Love this, Kate. It really speaks to my heart.
I love your take on this word, Kate. Acceptance is the word that keeps slapping me in the face. So, I have turned off the striving activities for a bit. I’m praying more. Repenting. Asking forgiveness. Asking to be changed by acceptance of my life. The one God purposefully designed just for me.
this was such a great reminder! I have read this book and its wonderful! thank you!