Five Minute Friday: Joy

This imperfect post below is a result of taking a blind leap of exercising my writing skills through Five Minute Fridays. Hundreds of other bloggers around the globe take just five minutes every week (ok...maybe I am not that consistent!  but...working up to it) to write for only five minutes on a one-word prompt that Lisa Baker gives at her site.  Interested?  Click here to get the details.


Joy

GO

Lately, my Joy comes packaged in a 3-6 month onesie. She drools like a leaky faucet and loves to show me her newest raspberry-blowing trick. Her smile lights up the room and the faces of everyone who happens to catch a glimpse of those tooth-less gums.

My joy-filled “never-ending, always giving, Grace of God” little girl loves her paci, her big brothers and sisters and chewing on anything in sight. With every addition to our family, when my belly is swollen to almost popping and I simply can’t imagine how I will handle it all…I think, “How can the love and the adoration and the joy spread far enough to spread over one. more. little. person?”

And then, she came. Of course, my joy for the other three, her predecessors, multiplied overnight like the loaves and fish. There is always enough for her. There is always enough for one more. My joy came when she did. It is hard to extinguish it, anyway, when you catch a glimpse of that smile.

Thankful for my little, baby Charis; my precious one.

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Five Minute Friday: Crowd

I stumbled across an opportunity that has captured the attention of hundreds of other bloggers every Friday.  It is called Five Minute Friday.  Basically, it is a chance to write for just five minutes, with a certain writing prompt in mind.  It is a chance to just create and think without paying too much attention to making it look pretty (i.e.: no editing, back-tracking or second-guessing allowed!).  Sometimes all I have is five minutes to write, anyway, so the idea seems to be right up my alley.  Want to read more about how it all got started?  Click here to go to lisajobaker.com to get the skinny.

Today's prompt, "Crowd," made me instantly think of the Sunday Walking Market in our city.  Before having Charis, there were several months where a group of girls and I would go to different places in our city to share the good news of Jesus with others that God put in our path that night. I looked forward to those nights every week. It was my inspiration for this week's prompt. I hope you enjoy it! (BTW, I wrote it when it was *still* Friday in the States and haven't had the chance to post it till today. Life.) 

Crowd

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I look out into the crowd, the aimless wanderers...the children running...the parents running after them. I see street-sellers, beggars, tourists in their darkened skin from a sunburn gone bad and I hear the noise of haggling and drums and ancient Thai music brought to life at the market of today.

The night market swirls with smells and people and noise noise noise. Although I am one of thousands in this crowd, I see with the eyes of the One who sees the few, the isolated, the ones on the fringes and the ones crying out for recognition. 

Those days when we went out every Sunday night! with watchful ears and eyes...I miss them. I miss streaming along the sides of the market stalls with sellers and their bounty. I miss passion fruit drinks and neck massages and sitting, sharing with the lady who drives in every night from out of town to earn a few baht and rub the necks and feet of tired, sweaty people. 

I miss the energy of people gathered together, and the air ripe with the promise of finding that one, "lost" in the crowd but "found" by the One who is treasure-hunting to find them. I will go again, one day, to seek them out again.


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Five Minute Friday: Fly

The very plane that brought us to Thailand almost 4.5 years ago.

This imperfect post below is a result of taking a blind leap of exercising my writing skills through Five Minute Fridays. Hundreds of other bloggers around the globe take just five minutes every week (ok...maybe I am not that consistent!  but...working up to it) to write for only five minutes on a one-word prompt that Lisa Baker gives at her site.  Interested?  Click here to get the details.

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Fly...

I get two kinds of mental pictures when I hear the word, "fly."

Picture one:

Soaring...freedom...puffy white clouds and an endless sky.  Maybe even Superman makes an appearance in this mental picture.

Picture two: 

In order to reach my family and friends who live across an ocean or two, I have to fly.  I have to spend a zillion dollars and plan for months and FLY to be able to see them, reach them.

One picture elicits incredible freedom and exhilaration and aaaahhhhh...a sigh of relief.

The second represents a barrier of time and space and a wall between locations on this big and wide planet.

They represent wanting to fly towards space and be away from people for moments upon moments...and in my more homesick and people-sick moments...flying represents my need and craving for the people I miss.

Fly...

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Five Minute Friday: Truth

Truth

No more hiding.

Ever since I chose to walk in truth instead of keep everyone in the dark, everything under wraps…I have no more reason to hide.

Sure, I might disappoint someone, but at least I am walking without chains.

Because, you see, keeping lies and fibs and half-truths creates chains that seem unable to be broken. Another un-truth leads to another which leads to another. I was tired of the cycle.

Whenever I found out that He will continue to love me, continue to be faithful, continue to not turn away His gaze…I could finally get real with Him, myself and with everyone else. Instead of walking in darkness, I chose the brighter path, though narrow.

Yes, there are consequences. I don’t have to seem to be as shiny and as orderly and as perfect as I wanted everyone else to see me as. I am just me. Broken. Needy. Ignorant. Desperate. Dumb, even, sometimes. I need someone to show me the way instead of me thinking that I already knew it.

He lead me into all Truth. Jesus. And now, you can, too.

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I didn't even want to post this because it isn't perfect. There are incomplete thoughts and so much more that I could have written. But, when I considered the whole nature of trying to walk in the truth of my imperfection and the whole vision behind Five Minute Fridays, I had to post it anyways.  

This year, I have committed to myself to be more genuine whenever I write here at Ordinary Life in the Wild.  Thanks for giving me a chance to get real.

Blessings,

Alina

Five Minute Friday: Present

I stumbled across an opportunity that has captured the attention of hundreds of other bloggers every Friday.  It is called Five Minute Friday.  Basically, it is a chance to write for just five minutes, with a certain writing prompt in mind.  It is a chance to just create and think without paying too much attention to making it look pretty (i.e.: no editing, back-tracking or second-guessing allowed!).  Sometimes all I have is five minutes to write, anyway, so the idea seems to be right up my alley.  Want to read more about how it all got started?  Click here to go to lisajobaker.com to get the skinny.

And, if you want to join in, you still have time left (it'll be Friday in the States for at least another 19 hours or so!)  Click here for the writing prompt...

Present...

GO

I would like to say that I am always here.

Always engaged.

Always ready; with divine wisdom and discernment poised in the arsenal of my mind.

But, sometimes...I'm not.

Sometimes, like you, I blip out.  I zone out.  I day-dream out...of my situation...of the conversation.

I wonder what it was really like to be the Savior.  Can you imagine what his inner dialogue was?  Did HE ever daydream?  Did he ever zone out of the conversation and star off into space.  I can't imagine so...

His dialogue with the Father was ever-so consistent, ready "in season and out."  Oh, how I long to have that kind of focus.  I have never seen myself as ADD, but sometimes feel that way. God has brought me down a long road of learning how to be engaged...to stop preparing my next statement, question, or rebuttal (while the person I am supposed to be communicating with is just trying to get their own thoughts across their mouths, out of their heads and into the air).  Can you imagine?  To not always be thinking of how to answer...but being there just...listening?

Listening to Him.

Listening for His reply.  Only His.

That is what present is.

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