5 Minute Friday - Belong

Belong…

The desire to belong is so strong, stronger than any other emotion in this world. We all just want to be accepted, welcomed, embraced, and loved as is, to belong to a part of something, something bigger than us. We spend so many years at the beginning of our lives, not trying to figure out who we are, but to belong. Because to not belong means to be different, to be set apart, and not in a good way. It’s easier to blend into the crowd to belong to the masses.

Then the longing changes, for some of us. We want to belong, but to what doesn’t matter anymore, it’s to who. Who will accept us, welcome us, embrace us, love us, as imperfect as we are? Yes there is the belonging to a husband or wife, to children. But there is a belonging even greater than that, one that is even harder for us to accept, because we have to do NOTHING to for it.

We belong to Him. We always have belonged to Him. There is no one, no thing, no group in existence to whom we belong more closely than to Him. But can we accept it, accept the acceptance, the unconditional?


1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. 
Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community. 

5 Minute Friday - Song

Song….

They say we’re supposed to have a song, but we don’t. That there are supposed to be some words from one musician, that encompass us in a few bars of black dots, but there isn’t. Sure, we have the song we danced to at our wedding {“Until” from Kate and Leopold by Sting}; sure, there were songs we liked for whatever season we were in. But there isn’t any ONE.

We come from the generation of mix tapes, then CD mixes…compilations of our own design, song that was more us in its randomness than in the beats and rhythms and measured time that 3 minutes contained. Mixes that weren’t uploaded to some generic MP3 player, but painfully laid out in perfect timing, labels that were scratched out in tiny handwriting. Mixes that couldn’t be just erased with a touch of delete, but that were beaten and scratched, played over and over until most of the songs skipped. Oh the mixes we’d make, song after song, some fast and upbeat, others slow and languid. It all was us, you and I, we think in song.

Last Friday, I walked out the back door, to the Moms’ Night Out group, that I started. Hearing the gate latch behind me, only one song played in my mind, “I’m Free” by The Who. The same one that played on those beautiful sunshine days of summer, when I left the ulcer-causing office behind me.

The song doesn’t play like it used, constantly and on loop, memorizing every single crescendo and staccato note. The silence is too priceless for me, to be marred by song. I miss it though. Music constantly pouring from the massive speakers you built in shop class when we were in high school, in all their gaudy electric blue and silver glory, still sitting above our kitchen cabinets, even now. Driving along the beautiful  back roads, smelling the damp earth of the woods, music blasting about how there’s nothin’ like the summer. Only when you’re home, does the song play again like it used to.

Lonesome drives home from Buzzards Bay. Five hours of songs, bewailing the distance between us, how I couldn’t take the miles, I couldn’t take the time until the next time I’d see you smile. Song that ticked off each mile marker on the road home. Song that blared from the lips of Celine Dion, as I drove all night to get to you.

There were binders and binders, and boxes and towers of tapes and CDs that we brought to OUR new home, now they collect dust in our attic, because they’ve been digitized. Song that has been reduced to nothing more than electronic code, no more is music a result of two objects brushing passed each other, gentle lovers.

No, for us there isn’t one song. There are a thousand songs, each singing a few discordant notes and uneven bars of what we’ve composed over the years.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Be generous and leave an encouraging comment for the person who linked up before you. That’s the best part about this community. 

5 Minute Friday - Brave

Five Minute Friday –Brave

Posted: 03 May 2013 08:56 AM PDT

I’m assuming, most of you have seen the movie “Brave”, about a girl named Merida and her dismay at being married off. Somedays I feel like Merida, as her father says about her, “I don't want to get married, I want to stay single and let my hair flow in the wind as I ride through the glen firing arrows into the sunset.”

Obviously I did want to get married and love being a wife and mother, but oh that riding through the glen firing arrows into the sunset, escaping another poopie diaper or cook another dinner, anything that I really would rather not deal with….I could stand for that somedays. Somedays just getting out of bed feels like incredible bravery, taking that step off a ledge into the unknown.
But isn’t that what being brave is about, taking that first step, and the next, all the steps that are laid before us.

Tomorrow my sister in law is getting married, having been married for 7 1/2 years and 4 kids, infertility, and everything else, it makes me think. Obviously I wouldn’t change my life, but how brave would we truly be if we knew all the things before and chose that path anyways, in anything, not just marriage.

Getting married is brave. Statistics tell us your more likely to fail, and fail miserably, creating broken hearts and broken homes, but there are those of us who decide to take that step, to not sit by, afraid. Sticking through the tough days or years, doing it on your own if it has failed, continuing forward, facing all that your path has….that is bravery.

Life requires us to be brave, God requires us to trust Him.


1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back to Lisa-Jo and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.. 

5 Minute Friday - Rest

You can find this post at my new blog JessicaMWhite.com, click here.

5 Minute Friday - Quiet

My mom stops by for a visit, “Do you mind if I take Avie for a W-A-L-K?”
“No, that’s fine. Avie, do you want to go for a walk with Oma?”
”Oh yes!”, she exclaims, clapping her hands excitedly. “I love my Oma!”
”Oma loves you too, Avie.”

For a few minutes I have quiet. Babies are still napping in their cribs, Avelyn is outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine and the sharp November air. What should I do in these few stolen moments of quiet? I have no idea. It certainly won’t last long enough to really get into anything.

I roll out the crusts for the 2 apple pies I’m making for our church fundraiser dinner tomorrow night. Enjoying that all I can hear is the dishwasher whirring, the DVD playing that annoying loop music it does on the menu screen, and the clickety-clack of my fingers pounding out words in this quiet.

Quiet.

The thing I seek so desperately sometimes. The thing that is elusive, when I need it most, to gather my thoughts, to think about how I should respond {not react} to any one of the number of things these 4 crazy-kids of mine concoct. The thing that I stay up way too late at night to enjoy. Looking at the clock, thinking, “Is it really already 10:30? I really need to get to bed!” Then I stay up at least another hour puttering around the house.

What’s funny, is sometimes this quiet, is more deafening then the noise of 4 kids. It roars in my ears, leaving me feeling windblown and harried, not knowing what I should do, because I must DO something when it’s quiet. And then, those are the moments when I miss the noise and would gladly trade all the quiet in the world for the cacophony of cries, babblings, complaints and blubbers, always, ALWAYS punctuated with the squeals of giggles that are elicited when mommy clambers down to the floor,willing to be a human monkey bars.

And just like that, the quiet is gone. Ave is banging on the front door, holding the hand of the mud-caked Oma {who fell in the river behind our house –She refused to let me take a picture}, and then Jamesie and Henry are starting to screech for someone to get them out of their cribs.

Oh, QUIET, how I never seem to know what to make of you.

Join me? For Five Minute Friday with Lisa-Jo Baker.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Five Minute Friday {from Allume}

Voices in my mind, telling me what I should, can be, voices that are not from above, but from around, from the earth winds of time and passions, of others that are not always of Him. I need only listen to one voice, His, but it is so often drowned out by the clutter, the mundane and overwhelming. I need to be still, to be, to sit quietly, to listen for the still small voice of His. To take my direction from above, from within, ignoring the without. 

I hear my voice, trying so desperately to quell the storm, the deluge, the flood of those things that I need to ignore. Enough! It is enough to just be, to hear His voice and to ignore all others. If only it were that easy. To find my voice, I need to silence those around me.

Join me in linking up with Five Minute Friday with The Gypsy Mama.

5 Minute Friday - Deep Breath..

Wanna just write? Without wondering if it’s just right or not. You’re welcome to play along. The rules are easy.

1. Write your heart out for five minutes and show us what you’ve got.
2. Tell your readers you’re linking up here and invite them to play along.
3. And most importantly, go visit, read, and encourage the fellow five-minuter who linked up right before you.{I humbly beg you to turn off word verification for the day to make this easier!}

Deep Breath....

I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a pool, preparing myself to take the plunge. And in a way I am, what happens today with invariable affect my life, in one way or another. If today results in the outcome I desire, it means that Avelyn will be a big sister (and an awesome one at that!). If it doesn't turn out the way I want, it means we're down another vial and 1 more closer to having to make some seriously big decisions.

I catch myself holding my breath and remind myself, "Breath! Breath!" God is in control as he always is, I just have to surrender my ridiculousness and allow him to have control of my heart and mind, as well as my body. It's never been easy for me to give up control. I keep hoping that some day I will be able to do it well. Hasn't happened yet.

I've been able to trust God fully and feel his presence the past two weeks through all of this and yet, here I stand, at the moment I need to trust Him the most and I'm drawing myself away, closing myself up, not breathing. I remind myself "take a deep breath; that we ever had Ave was a miracle. Why do I believe that He could put a child in Mary's womb, but not my own, even when it has happened before?" I don't know the answer. I know I need to keep breathing, deep, cleansing breaths to renew myself and remove this negativity that I know comes at the hands of the Evil One: "SATAN BEGONE! I REBUKE YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!"

Deep breath....keep taking them....from now ....until it's over.....whenever that may be.

5 Minute Friday - If you met me...

If you met me....

You'd probably find out I'm a lot shyer than you thought I would be. That when I meet new people I probably come across as somewhat snobby, but it's just that I honestly have no idea what to say and worry about sounding like a fool OR I say the first things that pop into my head which aren't always the best things.

If you met me....you'd notice that I'm starting to go gray at my left temple, that my hair is rather haphazard, that I have a ton of freckles all over my face, I'm usually smiling or laughing, that I have big brown eyes, and I'm probably shorter than you'd think. 

Depending on the day you may think I have it all together or that I'm completely losing my mind: And honestly, I'm a little bit of both. Even when I "have it all together" I usually don't because there's something (in the form of a little girl running around) that I can't control, but God does.