Welcome to this week’s edition of the Five Minute Friday link-up!
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This week’s FMF writing prompt is: HORIZON
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.
This past New Year’s Eve, I saw an activity on Instagram that I thought would be fun to try with my family: Make your own 2026 BINGO cards.
The idea is that you fill a 5×5 grid of squares with activities you’d like to do in 2026. Then as you complete each activity throughout the year, you cross out that box on your grid.
My daughter came up with all kinds of creative ideas, ranging from “bookstore crawl” to “buy a record player” to “go to a wedding” to “travel internationally” to “keep a plant alive.”
You guys.
I could *not* fill out my grid! I came up with four or five ideas, then just stared at the empty boxes on the rest of my grid. Then my daughter pointed out, “Mom. Those are all things you already know are going to happen.”
She was right. The only things I had written on my board were planned, expected events, like, “Watch my daughter graduate from college.” (Which is still wild to me that this is happening in four months, by the way.)
My inability to write down ideas of things I would like to have happen revealed a lot about me.
When making plans with people (whether fun get-togethers or work meetings), I’ve gotten into the habit of including the phrase, “Lord willing.”
It comes from the passage in James 4:13-15 (ESV):
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Could it be that I’ve seen so many plans fall through in my life, or experienced so many detours and disappointments that I can’t even write in indelible ink the things I would like to see happen in my future?
I suppose so.
STOP.
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Speaking of making plans,
Lord willing we will be gathering every Friday in February for a
Writing Accountability Group!
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P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who has celebrated the release of my latest book with me,
Longing for Home: 52 Devotional Reflections on the Hope of Heaven
Don’t these three beauties look pretty together?
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Join us with your own five-minute freewrite on the writing prompt, HORIZON, below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:
That bingo game sounds like a fun idea.
I always add “Lord willing” as well, and can totally relate to “Could it be that I’ve seen so many plans fall through in my life, or experienced so many detours and disappointments that I can’t even write in indelible ink the things I would like to see happen in my future?” On the other hand, there have also been many unexpected blessings too, so your daughter has a good point.
Disillusionment is the greatest illusion of all.
Your last line, about seeing so many plans and dreams fall through, and living with so much disappointment that you can no longer dream, is what I’ve been wrestling with God about. I feel like my ability to dream of my future has been stunted.
i would have a really hard time with that type of challenge as well.
It’s better to lean on God than to try to do things under our own power. May God bless you as you are obedient to His call.
I think I am also afraid that when I set a target, I am going to have to do all that hard work to bring it to pass.
Usually it is worthwhile though – rarely are such events solo events, but about relationships.
Which reminds me that I need to make some decisions!!