It’s #FiveMinuteFriday free write time! <—click to tweet this!
Where a flash mob of folks spend five minutes all writing on the same topic and then share ’em over here.
Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started? All the details are here. And every week I’ll pick a post that caught my eye and share it down there in my side bar – see where it says “Featured Five Minute Friday”? Yea -that could be you!
Because, as we all know, the most important rule of Five Minute Friday is leaving an encouraging comment for the person who linked up before you. So getting to feature one of your fine posts is like frosting as far as I’m concerned.
So, set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..
OK, are you ready? Please give me your best five minutes on:::
Enough…
:
GO
There’s the cranky mom and the walls wet with paint. There’s the four-year-old manic as any junkie on crack withdrawal wailing circles around us all and the dog who fled to the playroom and peed herself out of the chaos. There’s the baby who’s forgotten how to nap and a nearly-seven-year old who keeps watch and thanks me when I manage not to lose my temper.
I whirl.
Sometimes the world is a desk and a chair and a smelly carpet. Sometimes the world is so small you can pack it in a diaper bag and forget that anyone else is breathing through their own whirlygig next door.
Legos land like crazy red rain.
I can only find one flip flop.
I leave Peter politely desperate messages about my threshold for making it through this day.
And in Haiti I know there are mothers who wrestle the heat and the pennies and the one-meal-at-a-time prayers who must fight through an ordinary only half related to mine.
My more than enough.
I choke it down.
I remember to look to the hills for the God who sends help.
I don’t want to be lost in this day. Or defeated. Or forget what enough looks like when it really matters.
STOP
OK, show me what you got! {Subscribers, you can just click here to come over and play along}
If I lived near you I’d be dropping in some peanut butter m and ms to you, right about now :-) But yes, perspective is everything, is it not?
This hit me in the gut when I got to the end of your post. I just read Ann’s post today. Really. We do have so much and yet.
I’m a mess after reading Ann’s words the other day, and here yours are so beautiful and challenging, reminding me… I haven’t been able to make sense of things for a while, between Jen Hatmakers book, 7, which I’m reading, and Ann, and Kristen (WATF) I’m guilty of complaining about my struggle here, and considering the struggles others face and how the heck does one even make sense of it all… It’s late, my heart hurts, I am so very tired…..
Looking to the hills with you, Lisa-Jo. Thank you for this reminder of hope.
Oh, me too, friend! I read Ann’s posts this morning and it’s amazing how one person can go and share and how we’re all wrecked because of it. When our days are hard and we think it’s enough and we can’t handle one more bit, that He reminds us that just He is enough. Him alone. And I’m humbled.
Right there with you!
“Sometimes the world is a desk and a chair and a smelly carpet. ” What a great line. I would add lots and lots of dog hair on that smelly carpet!
Heh – indeed
So good to be back in the game … doing five minute Friday. It has been awhile, but I am so up for it … thanks Lisa Jo, okay enough already!! God bless ya lovely.
Welcome back :)
This was challenging and yet fun. I have not done free writing in quite a while and hopefully this will get my creative juices going.
I love that you are able to find your perspective in the moment and appreciate your ordinary. I wonder if all of us mothers wrote on the same topic? That is definitely where my mind went to this morning on “enough” as well. Love the detail. I feel I know your morning. Love the grace from large to small you articulate. Hearing so many voices wailing the same “Enough” somehow normalizes it and brings back my laughter. Happy Friday Lisa-Jo. I am so enjoying visiting with you!
yes – I love that we can “normalize” the crazy for one another. That’s such a great way to put it!
Ann and I went to different parts of the world, but came back with some of the same impressions and hearts breaking. I just have to remind myself that God has he where He wants me for a reason. Thanks for today’s prompt! It has been my “topic” all week long. :)
Yes, that’s so true. To cling to the belief that we are none of us born by accident where we are. That He has a plan. And that holding tight to it and finding ways to follow is time much better spent than feeling guilty.
Amen…not to forget what enough looks like…I have lived in the Land of not enough for too long…thanks be to God He is bringing me to Himself where i find the great I AM is always enough. have a wonderful weekend. blessings~
i struggle with this every single day – frustrated with myself for not being satisfied with my enough. then there are those days when i’m angry with the Lord because to these eyes, His sufficiency for my neighbors or the ladies at my church in this desperately poor place is so clearly not enough. and all the Bible verses, all the thinking, all the attempts to make is all make sense fall short.
i so clearly can see my enough even when it doesn’t feel like it.
but how is her (mamata’s, amina’s, mariama’s, zeinabou’s, fatimata’s) enough truly enough?
i keep coming back to agreeing with God’s choice for my enough… and trust Him with His choices for others and His moving when i may be part of His plan for their enough.
Those are hard questions, Richelle. And we all ask them I think. And maybe asking and asking and asking is a large part of following hard after the God who is Himself the answer.
I’ve been in this deep-in-desert place of motherhood this week trying to gain perspective on the poop-covered carpets and the whine-infused meal times and how His grace is more than sufficient for me and how that means my grace can be enough for them. This was beautiful, painstaking and so honest, Lisa-Jo. Thank you for these words, reminding me that I don’t hit motherhood walls of desolation in isolation.
Sometimes my threshold for getting thru the day is so very very low. And it becomes incredibly easy for my idea of “enough” to become “what do all the people around me think is good enough?”… and that makes me nuts. and I have to realign myself to God’s version of enough; and there’s grace and mercy. and its okay if the floors aren’t clean enough to eat off of & if my son goes all day in his jammies sometimes, that’s okay too.
I adored the whole post, but that last line, “Or forget what enough looks like when it really matters,” just hit me squarely in the gut (in a good way!). It’s so incredibly easy to get tossed about by the day(s) of motherhood. I’m so thankful for those sweet moments of clarity when God reassures us He here and that we are moving in the right direction.
Thanks for being you! :)
Your post is such a good reminder for today. Even while living through unemployment right now, we still have so much more than enough!
BTW, the links to everyone else’s posts seemed to have disappeared. Or am I just missing something?
Yes, I’m a first time participant and I have no idea where to leave my link at? Thanks for your help!
Sorry guys, it went AWOL for a while but it’s back now. Link ’em up!
Loved this post, Lisa-Jo. It inspired me to write about finding enough when emptying myself in His presence. Also, like Tereasa above, I didn’t see where to add link to my post, but visited Tereasa’s post from her comment. (??) ~De
Sorry De, it’s back now :)
Linky gone?
Bad linky. Bad, bad linky. It’s back now :)
I feel your pain and exhaustion though I haven’t had one of those days for a little while now.
Oh I totally understand those days! It’s so easy to get caught up.
Thanks again…still can’t get linked in so here is my 5 minute:
5 Minute Friday: When Will it be ENOUGH? http://wp.me/p1RzUf-1hq
Wow!!! Really beautiful and so true!!! So glad a friend told me about you! Your so encouraging!
Your words always make me smile. Such wisdom and true stuff flowing which seems to be so effortless! I am new to five minute friday (Two weeks ago was my first post) and am completely enjoying myself! THANK YOU for hosting!
Oh I Love when folks keep coming back for Five Minute Friday and find their feet and encouragement in the community! Yay!
Lisa-Jo I just linked a 2nd post today. I hope you’ll get a chance to look at it. It concerns the tragedy in Colo. today. I wanted to let you know because it shares a resource that was shared with me today. I struggled with the apprpriateness of linking it here. I will understand if you decide to disable the link. I truly felt like it could help someone so I posted it.
Ohhh, this was a cathartic one for me today. How unexpectedly so. Guess it’s evident what was on my mind. :) Yet it gives truth. And a dose of my own limitations. :) Good word, as usual!
My life has been crazy hectic over the last couple of months. Clinging to “my enough” as good enough hasn’t always won the day. I love your kick-in-the-pants reality check.
Lisa-Jo, I did it finally! Joining you all for a Friday! (er, a day late) I relate to your chaos this week and to wrestling with thoughts about Haiti and other places in the world I hold dear because of those I know in need. Writing this “Enough” post has helped me sort it a bit and get the juices flowing to help me get it out onto paper or screen.
Have a lovely weekend!
Hi. I tried linking up my Five Minute Friday post using the linky but it wouldn’t work. I’d still love to join up :) here’s the link to my post if someone could help me out here, lol.
Five Minute Friday fiction post :)
I love your new site design, btw :) Happy writing to all!
Hi, I think your site might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your blog site in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer,
it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
Other then that, wonderful blog!