Write Now!
This blog started as a 'Lenten Writing Project', where we wrote each day in Lent. Now that Summer is here, let's keep up the discipline of writing with a weekly writing challenge! A prompt will be posted each week and anyone is welcome to join in and post their writing here or participate just by reading it.
Every writer has their own special light to add to this blog and all of your writing offerings are appreciated, whether poetry, prose, essay, thoughts, lists or comments and encouragement.
Sleepytime
ReplyDeleteby Pat Mason
To me there is nothing more Godly than when a child sleeps.
A child will sleep when he is tired and because he is tired.
A child sleeps in total trust that his loved ones will care for him through the night.
A child will sleep wherever he is when he becomes sleepy. He does not feel self-conscious or embarrassed when his eyes begin to close.
A child sleeps deeply, the cares of the day left behind and the plans for tomorrow not considered.
And the best part is, after a good sleep, a child almost always wakes up in a great mood, ready for the new day.
A child sleeps as we should live.
With trust, love, confidence and wearing a big smile!
This Teacher's Prayer in Haiku
ReplyDeleteby Gary Boeger
To teach IS to give
But I've never fooled myself
It's what THEY gave me
Haiku - Trust
ReplyDeleteby RuthAnn Wilson
Trust like a young child,
Know God will catch me, I fall
Into loving arms.
Snow Child
ReplyDeleteOnce there was a child in snow
Who kicked and tossed to and fro
She laughed out so loud
It giggled the crowd
Such fun they were grateful to know
In the Moment
ReplyDeleteA young child's intentions
Fully in the moment
Immersed in peace and grace.
DyAnn Dennie
What is Godly in a Child After Being at Home With Them for 10 Days on Mid-Winter Break.
ReplyDeleteReligious discipline: the discipline to remain calm when my two- year-old inevitably needs ‘uppie’ when I’m making dinner, have 3 pots overboiling and noodles that need draining before they turn to mush and when you say I say I’m busy making dinner, she suggests “one arm!”. Discipline: The discipline of a mother to hold back when my 5 year old left a balance beam in the hallway and I didn’t see it because I was carrying my 2-year-old who refused to put any pants or diaper on, favoring being ‘nakey’ on a snowy day in March. Then, I stubbed my toe on the long, heavy board that was left in the middle of the hallway for gymnastics reasons. I yelled. LOUD. I am now 1 step closer to never wearing heels again because my toe is so crumpled. CLARA!! I mega-yelled. An angel tentatively entered the hallway, peeking around the corner. I shouted the reasons why I was so mad. My loud explanations seemed to bounce off the walls around me and clatter to the floor with no purpose. I was mad and really really wanted to take it out on someone, but the big eyes staring up at me, with slightly shuddering posture stopped me. The stress of the week at home had built up and I was reaching the top of my endurance, but with my last bit of discipline, I dropped my loud, whining complaints and let her continue on her way to reading a book, doing an art project or finding pants for her sister. Then, later, I came into her room, sat next to her and apologized for yelling so loudly and said I was more mad at my toe than her. I asked if I could give her a hug and she said yes. I prayed silently to myself God to preserve her angel-ness despite my roaring. And I prayed for my stupid toe.
And that is how God's Grace works for us, too. Imagine how frustrated God gets with us....and yet we still get another chance, when we show OUR big eyes of repentance and finally "getting it"(once in a while). If only WE could be so patient....If only God could make that patience more easy for US! Yet we are still loved the way we are...all the more amazing...the more to pass it on.
DeleteYOU are more patient than you think.
s.h.
Versed in Your Time Lord
ReplyDeleteBy Marlene Obie
It has been written that a thousand years are but a day in your sight, O God. Is this not the concept of time within a teenage girl?
In a graceful slow-motion dance, she glides through the house and prepares herself to go on the shopping trip she's been promised. Minutes, hours tick by and yet she is unperturbed. Because it is not my activity and I have no time schedule for the day, I refrain from my usual pushing and direct my attention elsewhere, wondering how long it will take. Will we leave before my muscles atrophied to where she'll have to push me through the mall in a wheelchair? Will the stores be closed before we leave? (Hope, hope) Will she outgrow the clothes she's selecting to wear?
You know how I am, Lord. How I hate to be late, even when there is no deadline, I want to "hurry to get things done". To get there before the mall gets more crowded (which by 3:00 it will already be.) To get done with the shopping and on our way home before it's dark, pouring rain, and crazy with traffic (which it already is on Saturday).
Yes, I know--and apparently your presence in her is showing that she knows too. "All we really gotta do is live and die. But I'm in a hurry and don't know why."
Of course, we got there in time for her to spend her accumulated allowance on 7 pieces of clothing which only took a couple finger-snapping minutes for her to find them, try them on, and purchase them. And as your good steward and smart woman, she chose the sale-priced items. We were home before bedtime, allowing her time to sit on the deck in her hooded jacket with her computer on her lap while supervising the go-dog-go action with the dogs and neglect the chores she had "forgotten" to finish the rest of the evening. (Maybe you could work on a few mental alarm bells there?)
In millions of years creativity, as if in seven days, you came up with this world and all its beauty and life. What will it profit us to rush through it and our lives like a bullet train?
If we're late coming into church tomorrow, you'll know she's still moving to your time. And help me to remember not to go on and on about it. I know it won't cause the end of the world.
Thank you for blessing me with her presence and yours in this real time.
Ebey Flats
ReplyDeleteAt the windy shore,
Two boys screech and laugh, while the
Rain stops to listen.
--Dave Patneaude
Lent Feb. 25, 2012 Saturday
ReplyDeleteI remember the searching eyes of each of my newborn daughters,
fresh from Heaven,
looking around in amazement,
trying to make sense of it all.
I Peter 2:2
Once, during a pre-meal prayer, I peeked across the table to check on my very young daughter's prayer cooperation; only to find her serious face squinting back at me, trying to make sure she was doing it "correctly".
Proverbs 22:6
Something I always recognized as watching Godly play was as my daughters squealed with happy abandon at discovering another of God's miracles....rainbows, caterpillars and butterflies, cuddly kittens, squiggly puppies, new babies; or blowing dandilions into the wind.
Psalm 127:3a
Children learn by imitating and through play. That's when they can problem-solve and internalize what they learn.
I kept this in mind as I observed my daughters play "church" at home, using dolls, stuffed animals, and each other for the congregation. They also used old hymnals and Bibles found around the house; and "read" from old bulletins for the sermons. They served communion with crackers and grape juice and the hymns were their old favorites "Jesus Loves Me" and "The B I B L E". However, as they were young, some of the words from the Liturgy came out a little differently, such as the "Potty of Price" and the "Peas of the Lord". But, they bowed their little heads and prayed with their hearts. God knew what they were doing.
2 Timothy 3:15
Once one of my young daughters told me, after a church prayer circle, that she had seen an angel standing behind a certain man that she had been sitting with in the circle. Sometimes, she saw this angel even during the church service. Unknown to her, this man was terminally ill.
Isaiah 11:6b
s.h.