Five Minute Friday

day 10: care {& five minute Friday}

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 1 Comment

Ten days into the 31 day writing challenge, and I’ve got to admit I’m feeling a bit weary of it. But it’s like training for anything worthwhile, writing takes effort and it’s right when you most want to give up that you’ve got to keep on going – because now you’re growing. (That’s also what my barre instructor says and often I ignore her advice and put the weights down, for goodness’ sake because I can’t do it any longer.)

So I pause today, on this Friday, even for five minutes to write my heart out. Thank you, kind readers, for reading along and encouraging me that this pursuit is worthwhile.

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Care – I should know a lot about “caring” for I am in a profession called categorized as a “caring profession.” During the other 75% of my week, caring is what I do full-time for my twin 4-year-old daughters. But just exactly what is meant by “care”? 

Care is a burden and a relief lifted. A burden of mine and a relief given when you care about my cares. Just to get a little more complex, let’s think about all the various forms care can take. It’s not only what is cared for (noun), it’s what you do in reaching out to someone else with cares (verb), and it is the way a person, profession, or organization is described when it’s characterized by those who excel at interest attuned to the needs of others (adjective). And I haven’t even started thinking about all the ways we use care casually and flippantly about topics or people we are only mildly interested in or invested in but feel pressured to care about because, well, it’s part of being human to care about global warming and poverty and going green and saving the environment and performing random acts of kindness for strangers. (But care divorced from action – is it visible? I guess at least it’s a start.)

No discussion about care can be complete without speaking of the one from which all caring derives its source, whether aware or unaware. The one who says, “Cast all your cares on me, for I care for you.” (my very rough paraphrase of 1 Peter 5:7) To know that HE cares for me – the one who carries the entire world – I visibly relax and exhale. And I am released to go and do the same for you. To really care for you in a way that carries the burdens you’re carrying to make them lighter and to remind you of this One who Cares for you always.

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photo by paintermommy.com

photo by paintermommy.com

Day 3: new

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments
new snow

photo from larainydays.blogspot.com

“Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) Who doesn’t love new? Like a white blanket of snow unmarked by footprints, “new” begs for us to venture forth in joyful exploration. And new is what the world will be one day, and new is what we in Christ already are. We are the ones who display the “new” to come – the first sign of what will be fully realized at the end of time and the beginning of eternity.

New means we get another chance, that I never run out of grace to cover my sins and failures, that there is always hope for tomorrow and the next minute to be different. New means that I am not defined by who I’m not – I find new identity daily in grace and mercy that hides me securely in Jesus Christ.

What could this look like today, for you and for me? Not only that I walk in the joyous adventure of my new freedom in Christ, unfettered by past sins or future anxieties, but it means I can relate to you with forgiveness. Giving you a new chance to be who God is making you to be. At the end of a difficult day with my daughter, I lean in close as I’m kissing her goodnight and remind us both that tomorrow is a new day. What hope! What lightness – what fresh beauty awaits and what new mercy will cover tomorrow’s imperfections! I can continue to fight against idolatry and to invite you into the same. You will never be outside of the reach of redemption.

For behold, he is making ALL things NEW.

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Posting as part of 31 days and Five Minute Friday today.

 

Five Minute Friday: “hold”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

It’s been a good week, of finally getting a sense of our fall rhythm, of looking ahead to a beach vacation with family, of more quiet moments than rushing-hurry-hurry ones. And so I return to Five Minute Friday, hosted by Kate Motaung, five minutes of writing unedited each Friday on a given prompt, with the word “hold.”

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You were so tiny that my finger dwarfed your arm. Your arm! At 5 lbs 6 oz. and 4 lbs 11 oz., you were small miracles. Miracles that waited through 10 weeks of strict bed rest before entering the world. And to finally hold you! To see the faces I had dreamt of – well, it made all 35 weeks of pregnancy worth it. Button noses, dark blue alert eyes, mouths that smiled as you slept your newborn dreams.

I thought I would never tire of holding you close. And I haven’t (most days). You still want to cuddle close after a bad dream or a skinned knee. There’s a unique way that you each settle in, laying your head on my shoulder with long legs that now stretch to my knees. Usually, it is this holding that is enough to calm you down. 

How you teach me! About settling in to my Father’s embrace – returning to him for comfort amidst emotional storms, leaning trustfully into his arms. 

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Five Minute Friday: “ready”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 8 Comments

What a perfect word for this week of readying ourselves as we sink into the September schedule. Three days a week preschool; grandparents newly moved from New Jersey; fall church schedule starting up. Are we ready? Definitely not … but a good refuge is “Five Minute Friday” this week.

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photo credit: photographsbypeter.com

photo credit: photographsbypeter.com

“Ready or not, here I come!” Her call echoes through the halls of our home as she eagerly goes in search of her sister (who is likely hiding somewhere fairly obvious). Is she ready to be found? Always. Is her sister ready to seek? Definitely. In this brief interchange, there is a metaphor for relationship with the Divine. With our Creator. I think of the first “hide-and-seek” that happened in an idyllic garden. Perfectly perfect except for the sin that had just clothed Adam and Eve in shame. This time when God comes seeking them for their afternoon walk n’ talk, they hide. They do not run out to meet him, eagerly embracing the God who delights in them as his own image-bearers.

And ever since then, we too have been hiding. Hiding because we never feel ready. I was not ready to leave home for college in the Midwest; I certainly was not ready to be married or to parent twins or for my first counseling client. I am not ready for God to find me as I am. I need to clean up this corner; hide and straighten things out a bit. Smooth over the angry wrinkle in my heart; ameliorate the impatience; cleanse out those dirty stains.

God comes though, and he calls out gently, lovingly, “Ready or not, here I come!” For I cannot clean myself up without him. He knows and sees already the shame I want to hide. He pierces it through with his presence, exposing and healing and restoring in one fell swoop. In a great divine reversal, he makes me ready as I cry out that I am not.

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five minute Friday: “bloom”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 10 Comments

I so desperately long to write – but when? My three-year-old natives becomes so restless in the schedule-less summer, as do I. The days find me trying to entertain all of us through outings to the pool, or the air-conditioned mall, or the splash pad at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, or simply the sprinkler out front. By naptime, we are all exhausted and I sleep right alongside them. Instead of writing in my few stolen moments.

But for Five Minute Friday? Well, it’s *only* five minutes, and so here is a place I can always return. To keep my rusty writing skills a little less rusty. To keep practicing matching words to life, and placing words together to draw our souls upward to worship Beauty.

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photo credit: statesymbolsusa.org

photo credit: statesymbolsusa.org

Bloom. I think of wandering through fields of bring periwinkle blue blossoms, Texas bluebonnets, while visiting our Houston aunt and uncle and cousins. There is nothing quite so beautiful as a field in bloom. Sunflowers especially grab my imagination this time of year. Their bright, happy yellow faces greeting the day like eager children.

Something in bloom is evidently full of life. There is life coursing through its stems and its roots and it explodes in colorful blossoms. Oh, to bloom like this in life! To be a vehicle for the Life that is in me – the abundant, vibrant, never-giving-up, never-running-out Spirit. This is the hope of glory hidden within – of me hidden within this glory. Christ in you, the hope of [blooming] glory.

To spill over into my relationships with the hallmarks of this life – with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. To imagine such a “field” of flowers – oh, how our churches and families and neighborhoods would change! Oh, how my heart would be at rest, reveling in the bloom of this glorious Life spilling over in a thousand beautiful ways. 

Five Minute Friday: “mess”

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

Ah, the irony of writing about “mess” as I’m in my favorite coffee shop, surrounded by happy chatter and no mess except that of my own creation … which right now, is nothing. But here goes. Jumping into Five Minute Friday for my favorite of blog activities. It’s been a long week, one where I didn’t recover from last weekend’s illness till Thursday really. One of feeling drained, exhausted, “just making it.” I don’t like weeks like this, yet they seem inevitable to living in this cracked-jar world. Meaning I’m a cracked-jar of humanity whose weaknesses show up even when I try to glaze them over, and yet whose glory shines through in the midst of those places. There’s a verse about that in one of Paul’s letters (2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 6-7) …

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. …

Ok – on to five minutes about “mess.”

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Many days I feel like that’s all I am – a manager of mess.

“Clean up the toys! Put those shoes in the basket! Take your plate to the sink! Where do the Legos belong? How many times do I have to tell you not to throw your food on the floor?!”

But, really, what’s wrong with mess? Yes, orderliness breeds peace and calm. Clean creates mental space. A messy home for me is visual chaos (and thus mental as well).

photo credit: homestrong.net

But what’s wrong with mess, if mess is evidence of life lived fully and creatively? If mess is evidence of life? For, true, our home pre-kids certainly had less uncontainable mess. I’m sure my husband’s rooms pre-me were much more organized, picked up, neat. His car certainly was clutter-free before I came along.

And my desk, when rarely used, is immaculate.

Life requires mess though. Art requires mess. Life is living out the art of who we are, therefore it’s inevitable that life will be/look/feel messy. And I haven’t begun talking about the relational mess all of us create and contribute to when seeking to love and be loved. That will be for another post … or maybe another retreat … or my next counseling session?

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Five Minute “Friday”: paint

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Another week of catching my breath while juggling preschool drop-offs and pick-ups with a busy counseling schedule, and not one but two kids’ Easter parties, and hosting a small appetizer & dessert thank-you for the missions team at our church last night, and in the midst of it all, seeking to create time and space for soul-art. How fitting that this week’s word is “paint”!

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Paint is just too messy. This has been proven over and over again in the short 3.5 years I’ve had with my twin daughters. The handful of times I’ve allowed us to “take the plunge” over the precipice into paint, we have all come out quite colorful. And usually that includes my language (inside my head), with notes to self pasted across my brain like post-its of “why it’s NEVER worth it to paint with twins,” “better NOT to be creative in this way,” “reasons why to keep the painting at preschool with the experts,” etc etc. Can you relate? So in reality, our house rule is that we’ll be creative with anything but paint. When it comes to my kids.

my little artists

my little artists

 

But how ironic! For I still love to have a paint brush in my hands, whether to repaint a room or to dabble with words and color on a canvas. Art was always a favorite subject, and it was an elective of mine through high school. Somewhere along the way, I learned that art is too messy; that it’s inefficient; that mine isn’t as good as ____. And how those lies squelch the creativity of a creative being! 

We are all artists. I am learning that anew through A Million Little Ways and The Gifts of Imperfection e-course and my own soul when I take time to step off the treadmill of performance and simply be.

I am a creative being. And so are you. Even if paint isn’t your medium, what is? Paint the art of who you are across the canvas of your life today. Without shame. With abandon. Regardless of the mess. Maybe, just maybe, I might have the courage to do the same for my preschoolers!

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Five Minute “Friday”: writer

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Last weekend I was a retreat speaker on a topic that is my story, “When good girls get it all wrong.” I hope to post some vignettes from that retreat here soon, but this week has held recovery and rest – with the unexpected twist of nursing my twin daughters to health after a dual strep diagnosis on Tuesday. It’s been *quite* the week.

So I return to my blog, to this space, eager to write and to reflect and to join you in your stories in some small way through these words posted to a screen which you will read on your screen wherever life finds you today.

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“Writer” – the word thrills me and terrifies me. Thrilling because it is what I’ve been ever since my aunt gave me my first journal to record life in when I was 10 years old. Terrifying because to claim “writer” is to claim a dream that may not ever come to fruition in that full definition of being officially published. I am learning (and aren’t we always learning?) that regardless of whether I write a book that would be on Amazon or whether I continue to scribble my thoughts into pages of beloved journals or typewritten posts … I will always be “writer.”

Words bring life to thoughts, give expression to emotions that otherwise can undo me and confuse me and overwhelm me. But to see them on a page, all written out neatly and in order, it gives me hope that my emotions will follow at some point. And it becomes a starting point for that process. As an external processor who’s also a bit of an introvert, writing is the perfect nexus for expression without exhaustion. It can be (not always) exhausting to try to describe what I’m thinking and feeling and dreaming and hoping with another person. But to come to the refuge of a blank page in my favorite journal or a white screen in my favorite font. Well, then. Relief without asking anything in return. That is what writing can be. Unedited thoughts written to the great Editor of my soul. God who welcomes all of it. My words can’t hurt him (blissful thought as mine too often wound the very ones I love the most). He takes them – my words and the tangled emotions behind them – and he makes something beautiful out of it. He grants me some peace and clarity in return. He promises to guard these words which are my life. He softens my raw edges (and oh, how many I have!) – he, the great Writer of my story, highlights where I’ve gone wrong and covers all of it with his love.

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Join me and the Five Minute Friday writing community in writing for 5 minutes unedited each Friday on a different topic given by Lisa Jo Baker. (Whose new book came out this week! Can’t wait to read it!)

Five Minute “Friday”: joy

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 9 Comments

Life has been full here. Full in a good way – Seth and I both enjoying the challenges and privileges of our jobs and of parenting two beautiful, funny, exasperating twin three-year-old daughters. Trying not to lose sight of each other in the midst of a busy season. Trying to remember the busy season is that – a season – and thinking about how to proactively create space and a different pace at the conclusion of this spring season of Easter, my retreat speaking, his mission trip to Peru.

So here I am, this Saturday morning instead of yesterday morning, doing my favorite blog prompt by Lisa-Jo Baker. Five minutes to free-write – no editing, no second-guessing, just writing. Today’s word: JOY.

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photo credit: phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

Joy comes hidden. It’s not where you might expect it to show up. It may be part of the grand wedding day, the huge birthday bash, the day you see your name in print for the first time, the graduation, the job promotion, the moment you cradle your newborn and gaze into her wide-awake-to-the-world eyes.

But more often, joy has come for me in surprising places. Like the day after weeks of weeping for a love lost and you realize you can hear the birds singing again. Or the time in the very midst of suffering you thought you’d never live through that you hit something sustaining you under it and through it. Happy? Of course not. But there’s a rock-bottom Joy that holds you as you fall; that keeps you; that assures you you’ll not be utterly undone. 

Joy is what gives courage to face the hard, the impossible, the sad. It will not have the last say. Joy will still be there. Joy will increase more for all the sadness we know now. For, as Sally Lloyd-Jones says in The Jesus Storybook Bible, heaven is a day “when everything sad comes untrue.” She alludes to the mystery that  every heartache and heartbreak and dark season of the soul will somehow increase Joy for the one who finds refuge in the man of sorrows, Jesus, the most joyful one who was also the most sorrowful.

Can I fight for joy (not happiness) even in pain and suffering and loss? Yes, yes, yes. Wait for it. It will come as surely as the sunrise after a long, dark night.

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Five Minute Friday: choose

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

photo credit: theecologist.org

Oh, the many hats from which to choose today, in this moment, in a lifetime! To choose to don the “writer” hat is to disregard all the others competing for my attention right now: the “homemaker extraordinaire” who would fold the piles of laundry, mop the ever-so-dirty kitchen floor, vacuum the bedrooms, clean the dirty bathroom. Or maybe I should choose to be the “counselor-on-top-of-everything” and reply to emails; research a few new topics; formulate thoughts in response to questions and issues raised by the clients who sharpen me constantly and push me to dive deeper into faith and relationships and my own heart. Then the “friend who’s always there” who needs to return emails, schedule coffee dates, make a few phone calls, check in via text.

And that’s just for starters. Never mind what is actually pressing in this very moment – a retreat I’m speaking at tonight that needs to be polished and practiced. And a Jesus who calls me to choose what is best.

Enter Mary and Martha. As Martha frantically busied herself with serving and tasks and grew resentful that Mary wasn’t joining in, Jesus gently yet firmly reminded her – “Only one thing is needed.” So, Lord, give me grace to choose that one thing the next hour, the next day, during this season … this year … this lifetime. Teach me what is needed, and give me grace to choose wisely. Whether that be mopping floors, responding to emails, giving a hug to my daughter in need of reassurance, taking that phone call – or saying “no” to all of the above in order to BE with Jesus.

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I’m participating today in one of my favorite blog activities, Five Minute Friday. Write for five minutes unedited on a topic given by Lisa-Jo Baker each Friday. Link up to this community here.