It’s Friday, friends, time to write free, and, this here’s the last Five Minute Friday until January. If your new here, and you’re not sure what I’m talking about, It’s pretty simple. On Fridays, we write for five minute (set that timer!), then link your post up over at Lisa-Jo Baker’s place, and share some encouragement with your fellow writers who play along. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it only takes five minutes. Join us, would ya?
oh! One more thing, Lisa-Jo chooses the prompt and today, it’s Wonder.
Ready?
GO.
It’s happened before, when I lost my wonder. It’s easier than it might seem, to forget how good God is, or how great His gifts are–particularly when those gifts come in the form of heartbreak, or cloaked in tragedy. Sometimes I’m too bone-tired to search beyond the surface and when the tension mounts and the bills stack high I’ve been known to forget to wonder.
I’m a Fall/Spring lover myself, and it’s this dead season I can do without. Winter with all it’s cold and starkness, hurts sometimes–a tundra of transition, darkness before the light. I’ve been thinking about the dark lately. A lot. Writing a Lenten ebook as we round the bend into Advent is an experience–I underestimated the impact it would have on my heart.
In wrestling through words written during a wonder-less season past, remembering the dark, sometimes makes it seem dark again. I’m not wanting to go there. It’s winter without the wonderland part. But just yesterday, I read Shaun’s words and he reminded me that some winters are long–400 years long, when God seems to stand still and people wonder where He is, or even if He is.
And for me, it always comes back to His words. He says He’s with us always. He says He doesn’t leave nor forsake and so when the wondering mounts and the gifts pile up in disguise I can’t look at the surface. When winter strips the world bare and puts everything on hold for a season, I don’t have to wonder if the trees will get dressed come spring. I look to His word, and He tells me He cares even for these things without voice–trees, grass, flowers. He satisfies my wondering with truth and yet simultaneously invites wonder through His curious Word and ways.
Despite my dread of the quiet stillness of this season, there’s great wonder to enjoy in the wait. Nothing is as it appears. Ground frozen hard now, will split and birth new life. A king will be born under wild circumstances, and we will continue to wonder at His love that climbs intentionally onto a tree, and takes it all through the hands and heart for us.
So I’m clinging hard to truth, I’m wondering what He’ll do next–and when. He can be counted on, He does not fail.
PS: The Giveaway extravaganza is still going on. Go on, toss your name in the hat–you’ve got nothing to lose 
