Back by popular demand (you know who you are, friends – thank you for inviting back into this writing sphere with your encouragement last month!) – Five Minute Friday. Five minutes on a weekly prompt, no editing, just free-flowing words and stream-of-consciousness. I’ve been part of this community in its early stages, and it’s amazing what it’s become as of late. Curious? Head over to fiveminutefriday.com for more.

I’ve heard that a parent’s role is to be aware. To be alert, to notice, to watch out for impending danger ahead and warn or reroute as necessary. I’ve been told in my own journey of counseling that there have been blindspots in my own heart that I’ve not been aware of – that I’ve missed so much at times because of this lack of *awareness.* So to be aware is to be alert, but more than that, to be awake to life. Both its hard and its beautiful places. My own perspective can become so skewed – I’m trained by profession and calling to be aware of abusive tendencies in clients and to be aware of how my clients’ issues can bring up my own and to be aware of what’s not quite right so that I can help lead and guide and redirect to the best path forward.

But what God’s teaching me, what my counselor and good friends are inviting me into, is to bring my honed powers of awareness to the good and the beautiful. God is here, too, not just in the hard and the difficult and the sad. In fact, I think in today’s current cultural and political and international climate, to be aware of what’s good and beautiful requires *greater* powers of awareness than to notice what’s not right.

I want to be eyes wide opened to the good. I don’t want to miss a thing (thinking of lyrics by my favorite artist of late, Ellie Holcomb).

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