Five Minute Friday --Roots

A week ago, I was doing Five Minute Friday live (see picture below which I stole from Lisa-Jo's site)... and I didn't particularly care for the results, but I am my worst editor. Thankful for each Five Minutes I write and seeing how doing this regularly has benefited my writing and my thinking process!

To write for 5 minutes with no-overthinking, no editing is hard for me, but I'm working on it! You should totally join in! The community keeps growing and is one of the most encouraging places on the internet for writing practice!

This week, I'm sitting in a college dorm room... temporary housing while we wait for power to be returned to our home, post-Sandy. My brain has been fried from the ups and downs of the last 8 days, with Allume, returning home to my family, and then experiencing Hurricane Sandy, which resulted in no power and no school all week for the kiddos. God has protected us and blessed us and I'm thankful, but I am also ready to return to normal routines!

So this week I was going to wait until I was ready to write and then look up the prompt, but silly me opened my twitter feed this morning on my way out to breakfast, where all my lovely #FMFParty friends were already linking up their posts, so I've been thinking over ROOTS for most of the morning.


START:

The storms come and the trees sway. But they stand firm, roots dug in deep over time. You may lose a branch or two in the storms, sometimes big branches, but when the roots are firm, the tree stands tall.  Sometimes I'm amazed at the trees that fall in the midst of storms, and I wonder about their root system.

I've experienced a storm this week through Sandy, but very minor damage. My storm became an extended period of time without power and I wonder how I'm responding... I'm kinda tired of thinking about and talking about Sandy... giving thanks for the body of Christ, my temporary housing, and God's daily blessings and grace...


START take two:

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he shall not depart from it.

I have four kids, each completely unique!

Sometimes I wonder what God has planned for their lives. I really want to know now. I want to be pointing them in the right direction, training them in the skills, gifts, talents that God has given them. But for now, all I can do is show them how to find God's will. To be an example of listening to God's voice, reading God's Word, spending time with God's people. Building a foundation, a root system that will strongly support them as they get older and as the storms come.

I'm thankful for family roots and church roots and friend roots. And I'm thankful for the glimpses that God gives me of the talents He has given my children. I see the opportunities for growing those dreams in my kids. And I pray (not as often as I should, but as much as possible) that I would be feeding and watering and growing the right dreams in my kids.

Piano, soccer, karate, ballet. Writing, drawing, painting, public speaking. Gifts of serving, encouragement, administration, mercy. So many branches coming off these four little trees that God has blessed me with...

May their roots be strong, that they may find their wings.


STOP