Welcome to this week’s edition of the Five Minute Friday link-up!
Click here to learn more about the link-up and how it works.
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: RESULT
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the choices that we make, and how sometimes we can see the impact of those decisions, and other times there is a ripple effect that spans far beyond what we will ever know — for better or worse.
Sometimes we have an idea of the outcome of our choices, and other times, we have no idea how our action may have affected another person (or countless people).
In many ways this leaves me feeling quite small, realizing that the God of Heaven and Earth is the only One who truly has any knowledge or comprehension of the big picture.
In other ways, I realize the power that I possess in my ability to make a choice — with a single sentence, I could break a whole person, a family, a home.
My thoughts grow to issues too big for me to fathom, and then the Lord brings this to mind, a passage I sought to memorize more than a decade ago with a dear friend in South Africa:
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” ~ 1 Peter 1:6-7 (emphasis added)
Did you catch that? God is saying that our trials have come so that our faith may result in praise, glory, and honor.
Well then.
That’s all I have to say about that.
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In case you missed it, I made a big announcement this week:
The Writing Progress Tracker is now available in a printed, SPIRAL-BOUND edition! Woo hoo!
This resource includes 18 different ways to establish regular writing habits, improve your productivity, organize your writing life, increase your word count, and crush your writing goals!
ACCESS THE SPIRAL-BOUND VERSION HERE
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite on the prompt, RESULT, below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
The result of all my striving
are things I left undone,
always moving, not arriving,
but I’ve had lots of fun,
dreaming of what might have been,
not caring that it’s not
a part of my life’s vibrant scene,
but what the heck, I’ve got
experience to beat the band
that cancels out ‘oh, well’,
and now I think I understand
the tale God wants to tell
’bout living in the everyday
and sniffing roses on the way.
Three minutes fifteen. Oh, yeah.
I like this, I like the lack of full stops that, like the life described, means the prose is ‘always moving’.
It’s a fun post and I like that it leaves you ‘sniffing roses’
So happy you are up and running. I am hoping to get more people on Medium to join your weekly prompts. I pray that you are finding answers to your health concerns.
Blessings
Janis
Thank you, Janis!
1 Peter 1: 6-7 is a great verse to remember. We are meant to bring glory to God. Have a most blessed Thanksgiving!
Thank you, Carol! Same to you!
‘Result’, He said quietly down the phone. He sounded ok. I think?
But if it were negative, wouldn’t he sound jubilant, this husband of mine?
He sounded quiet.
A scenario – our future – played out in my mind. It was the scenario that had been playing out torturously slowly, several times a day for the last 3 weeks. Rounds of chemo and sickness. Barely recovering before the next lot hit you. Maybe preceded by an op and followed by radiotherapy. The sort of unpalatable sandwich that every patient dreads.
More tests, more quiet results, more hospitalisations until the work palliative is uttered. The world of hospices, hoists and sleepless nights.
The scenario played in my brain on fast forward now, in micro seconds, and still I didn’t like to ask. Maybe he knew I was holding my breath.
‘It was negative,’ he added. ‘I’ve got the all clear, it was benign’.
A shaky exhale as the full meaning of the word gratitude hit me. “Oh, thank you, Lord.”
Oh wow! Thank you, Lord, indeed! Rejoicing with you over this merciful news.
Oh how grateful we are for your good news!
I’m so glad to see your website has been restored. Thank you for persevering and hosting the link up anyway.
I’m grateful for your conclusion and the scripture you shared. We often just want to know that darkness and suffering has a valid point. Thank you!