This is the place where once a week we take the chance to just write, and not worry if it’s just right or not.
For five minutes flat.
Here’s how the game works: you simply stop, drop and write. Set your words free. Don’t edit them, don’t fret over them, don’t try to make them perfect.
That’s how Five Minute Friday was born. Want to play? It’s fun. And it’s never too late to link up. Also? The awesome Karen whipped up a Facebook page where we can connect and talk all things writing beyond just Fridays! Click here to join us.
Then come take the Five Minute Friday challenge.
1. Write for only five minutes.
2. Link back here and invite others to play along.
3. Go high five the word artist who linked up before you with an awesome comment.
It’s liberating; give it a a try and see.
OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes for the prompt:
Nothing….
GO
There is nothing you can do, nothing you can say, nothing you can throw up, spit up, shout up that will make me love you less.
There is nothing you can do wrong and nothing you can do right that will make me love you more.
I love you as is. Period, Full stop. I love you to the moon and around the milky way and all the way back here to your messy bedroom with the three day old underwear you’ve left lying next to your bottom bunk despite how many times I’ve asked you to pick them up.
There is nothing about you that I don’t love. Not your tummy troubles or your lisp or the fight you had with that kid who disrespected your friend. There is nothing I want to erase about you and nothing I am embarrassed about you.
I take you. Period, Full stop.
I love you even on the days I don’t like you.
And nothing is going to change that.
Nothing is going to stop me being your mom. Ever. Not middle school or how uncool I am or how you wish I wouldn’t kiss you at running drop off. Not how you style your hair and not what shoes you wear and not the choices you make.
Sad, maybe. Disappointed, yes, that sometimes. Angry and frustrated and irritated too.
But nothing will unhook this DNA that I have wrapped around your story as tight as the curls you insist we buzz off you every summer.
Nothing will unmake me your mother and nothing will infiltrate this space in my heart that belongs just to you, and you and the last of our three. Her too.
You are my everything and you fill up all this nothing I didn’t know was aching away here in my heart.
STOP
{Subscribers, just click here to come over and play along by linking up a post or sharing your five minutes in the comments – which are open today.}
Just like how there is nothing we can do to stop Him from being our Father. Amazing, unconditional love.
The way you write about each child so individually is a gift you’ve been given that some day they’ll read and it’ll be a gift given to them. I love seeing your relationship show through the words!
This. “I love you even on the days I don’t like you.” Yes. That’s me today. Tonight. As I had to rub my girls back for 30 minutes with my arm draped over the side rail and aching and almost wanting to shake her to go to sleep all because she just wanted me. And I didn’t like her for a few minutes. But, oh, how I love her. How I love her. Thank you for ALWAYS speaking my very own heart for me and for so many others. xoxo, Meredith
This was beautifully written, and totally spoke to my relatively new mother’s heart! Loved it!
Maybe in my youth I was an old oak tree
The only part that swayed or cared about the wind was the Spanish moss hanging from my branches
But as I grow old the oak tree has been replaced with a flower
Whose delicate leaves and petals now require more care and strength than it gives
Gentle, careful hands must tend its buds or easily crush the tiny blooms
Blooms which grow only while facing towards the warming sun
And receiving rain
And sun
And soil
And life sustaining air to breathe
Nothing can separate our love for our children…just as nothing separates us from the love of our Father (the subject of my FMF post today!). Love your heart for your children, Lisa-Jo, and the way you encourage us to love deeply as well.
I got nothing.
I got nothing left.
I am empty.
I have given all of me away.
Some days it feels I have nothing left. My oldest is 28. My youngest is 6, with 2 more in between. I have been a mommy for a long time. I love them beyond reason, with everything in me, but some days I am tired. 3 amazing, strong willed, smart, stubborn, persistent boys with ADHD have worn me out. I forgot to take care of me. I almost lost me in all the business of raising my wonderful blessings. I am here. I am more than just a mom and wife. I need more, from myself. I am finding me again. Making time for me again. I am worth it. They deserve it. They deserve a mom who is full. Full of life, of love and joy. I deserve it.
Maybe just maybe I am not left with nothing. I can be renewed if I seek it. If I allow it.
I haven’t lost me.
Wow…exactly how i was thinking. really. oldest is 29, off for a couple of days to the state special olympic games. and my youngest just turned double digits. 5 in between. and grand children. whose parents think we have no life? lol and always need someone to watch them. sigh…SIGH…and yet where am I? Does that sound selfish? I know I am out of balance, in relationships with the ones still at home and most definitely with my husband. and yes…tired, weary…hormonal probably…
thank you for sharing. Hang in there. And thanks for reading my mind. :-)
Well said! I also love the prompt this week. It’s so open, so we can each address it from a different angle. Looking at the titles of the links, it looks as though we did!
Nothing.
As I sit here I feel like nothing. And that still small voice that saved my life from suicide I 96 I still speaking telling me it is not true.
It is so hard to unlearn how to be invisible to survive. That my thoughts count. I am worthy. I cling to your word and keep trying to make myself believe what you have to say to me. How I love my girls. I have tried to be everything I wished I had growing up… And no. Not things. Words of love And worthiness. The first time I had a glimpse of what real love is was holding my first baby. I was overcome with love. And then suddenly I thought about how that pales compared to the love you feel for me. That nothing would keep you LORD away from me. Not my puny faith. Not my sin. Nothing. You would fight fore. D save me from myself. Just as I would fight for my first true loves.
I love you so… gah – just so much! So thankful that even though we are in different seasons of this Mama-ing, that we are in it together! (I type this out on ‘Moving Day’… already near tears at every turn… trying to feeling nothing in order to look strong, but who am I kidding? That is not going to happen… we’re all three going to be a crying, happy/sad mess of a heap today! The end of an era… and yet this: “Nothing will unmake me your mother and nothing will infiltrate this space in my heart that belongs just to you…”
So Much teary Amen, my friend!
This is so beautiful, Lisa-Jo! Your words are always such a lovely encouragement to keep soldiering on as a momma. Thank you.
What a cutie! :)
okay. so here is my #FMF post. maybe, just maybe i will figure out how to start a blog page by next week.
—Scripture says we are to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Some days, please forgive me Lord, it really does take a sacrifice of praise. Don’t get me wrong i am tcompletely grateful for the Lord’s great love for me. And in total awe when I think of what He’s done and what he continues to do, to call me…but there are days when He gets nothing from me. Nothing. Life/the enemy totally zap it out of me. No strength, no heart…mind totally devoid/empty full of everything but Him. And yet….in those days, in those times, clinging to Him is vital. Because I know it’s the enemy using everything he can to get my mind off Christ.
So turning nothing into something can be a challenge, but this life with Christ isnt’ easy, and sometimes, yes, sometimes jut the very act of having our minds ‘stayed on Him’ is the challenging part.
The woman with the issue had no where to go. NOTHING worked. Until she met her Healer. The Samaritan woman had nothing really, except a life that was always empty. Perhaps not of her own choosing, widowed perhaps. Branded for sure. Didnt’ know she had nothing until she met The Man who had everything.
Nothing….ashes, brokeness…Jesus can make anything out of nothing. Even transform a hurting, broken, lost person into a mighty warrior for Him.
whew…5 minutes done I think. :-)
this is hard. lol
Subject: Nothing
Nothing to say. Nothing to do . Nothing left of what used to be: us two. We had so much, started out brand new, full of promise & full of hope. How did this happen… if we only knew. If we had known that this would be… would we have even started, or just moved on through? I can’t say, for we’ll never know… But I hope not .
Some of it was good, some great… But unfortunately not enough to outweigh our fate.
First love, then hate, now nothing, nothing left, no feelings- good or bad. Nothing!
Thats the strangest of all. How someone you knew so well, or thought so anyway, could suddenly become nothing to you… Strange, but true.
So yea… every time I see the open invitation to join up… I FREEZE up. Taking deep breaths and promise to take the plunge soon. Glad you faithfully open the door for people to do their writing thing. Now… if I could just get the OCD over the threshold :)