Peace

Today, very appropriately, the word prompt in the #Five Minute Friday Group is: Peace.

Peace.

Such a rare find.

Peace of heart and soul and mind.

Peace in families, in communities, in countries, in the world.

I am a military mama, so as you can imagine Peace is being hard fought for on so many levels just now, both at home and abroad.

I did not want to be a military mama. I married a veteran and naively thought that he had left the army behind him, not knowing it would always be there in him in the form of PTSD, flashbacks and inner turmoil. So I definitely did not want my son to go down that same road.

Yet here I am a military mama with a declaration of war made and my son already away.

Peace?

Where is peace in this?

Heartbreak, tears, anxiety, worries yes these are all mine, but what about peace?

Well peace is hard fought for both globally and internally.

I am reminded of this verse

You will keep him in perfect peace,

Whose mind is stayed on You,

Because he trusts in You.

Isaiah 26:3

So today, my eyes are on the Lord, I will battle to keep my heart and mind set on Him, because I do trust Him, He is the Lord and nothing gets past Him.

They say peace is a person, peace is Jesus. He is my peace today, my mind is fixed on Him today.

Stretch

When my kids were small I longed for time and space to myself, now that I have an empty nest I have that, however, time can stretch out in long intervals and I have been particularly conscious of that for many people through lock-down – long stretches of time. For us during lockdown we tried to punctuate those time stretches of hours of the day or even days of the week by small tasks, routines or treats.

When you do have a stretch of time it is all very well to think very lofty thoughts of using that time in prayer or meditation, so you start and 5 minutes later you are finished, the hour stretches on in front of you!!

When I was working through a 12-step program the motto very much was ‘one day at a time’, however, I found that was too long a time period, it had to be moment by moment that I surrendered, that I checked-back my thoughts and emotions.

Stretches of time can be a blessing or a difficulty to work through to fill, but perhaps that is the secret, living moment by moment.

Stretch is the Word prompt from today’s #Five Minute Friday group of writers.

Commit

I am joining with the #FiveMinuteFriday community of writers who write for 5 minutes on a one-word prompt. Today’s prompt is the word: Commit

Often when I see the prompt in the morning I then go out a walk with the dog and mull over the word. I did that today and my thoughts went from my commitment to the Lord, to the Lord’s commitment to me.

I believe the word I am speaking of is the word, “hesed“; this is the word used many times particularly in the Old Testament which speaks of God’s loyal, faithful, committed love to us!

Let us pause, ponder and praise on such wonderful truths:

God is committed to us!

I will make you my wife forever,
    showing you righteousness and justice,
    unfailing love and compassion.

I will be faithful to you and make you mine,
    and you will finally know me as the Lord. (Hosea 2:19,20)

God is faithful to us!

⁶ The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out,

“Yahweh! The Lord!
    The God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger
    and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

God is loyal to us!

Yahweh! The Lord!
    The God of compassion and mercy!
I am slow to anger
    and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
⁷ I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. (Exodus 34:6)

Let us pause, ponder and now Praise:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
² Give thanks to the God of gods.
His faithful love endures forever.
³ Give thanks to the Lord of lords.
His faithful love endures forever. (Psalm 136)

Achieve

I am joining today with the #Five Minute Friday community of writers, where we write on a one word prompt for 5 minutes! Today’s prompt is: Achieve

I am certainly a task-focused person and often the task comes before personal relationships, before just sitting with someone and I’m sure I often trample on other people’s toes in an effort to finish my task as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

It is taking me a lot of intentional time and effort to move away from being that task-focused person to become more people focused and also to be ‘in the moment’, not being so busy completing my task, that I forget to enjoy, forget to look around and get the bigger picture, forget how it fits into the rest of my day or week.

So a couple of goals for me to achieve would definitely to ‘be in the moment’ and to put people before tasks.

I think this also ties in with ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet’, with meditating, with taking time out to Pause & Praise.

There is only one thing worth being concerned about.

Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:42 [NLT]

So today, instead of rushing through my day trying to complete and achieve all the things on my To Do List, I am going to practice pausing, to be in the moment and to be thankful for all that means and brings.

What about you, how can you pause & praise and keep in the moment instead of running ahead to achieve?