Tag: Writing

When One Plus One Equals One

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 33 Comments

Today’s 5 Minute Friday word prompt is Join… Join me on a five minute writing journey to see where we go. Just five minute of typing away. Knowing you are here with me, joining in, well that’s pure Joy.

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How do you wrap understanding around mystery. A God designed mystery of one plus one equals one, standing at the altar in white and black all open hearted and wide-eyed. And walking away you are one.

How do you grasp a life of together where one by one the little ones join you and you become family, united by a name you share and a life you make together.

It is a beautiful mystery of magnificent making. To look back on the days of life since you held sweaty hands and stood wobbly kneed and ran from a shower of flower petals to a waiting car where you held hands with a new name and an unknown future.

And the more days you live the more the mystery deepens of how loving another and making a life is wonderful.

Happily Joining with Lisa Jo Baker at Lisa Jo Baker dot com and her amazing Friday community.

For Better, For Worse, Till Death

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

Today is 5 minute Friday at Lisa-Jo’s where we write for five minutes on a one word prompt; and today it is on risk. Challenged. Scared. Excited. I will write for five minutes and trust. Thank you for being here today. It is a privilege to have you on this journey. (Linking with Lisa-Jo at Lisa Jo Baker dot com) GO

Risk- For Better, For Worse, Till Death

Everyday is a new start. His Mercies define the new. The beginnings begin anew. We love fresh, we love new. And we start our “I do’s” all over again. Every morning of everyday.

We love, broken. We love hurt. We love tired. We love flat out. And extravagantly. With it all on the line.

And when He leaves for a season, only to come back months later, we start over again with Hope, and Love, and forgiveness.

And there they are again. The new Mercies of His. They are there.

Walking beside Trust.

And when we say I do, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, till death, we risk.

We risk a life of two, merged as one. Invested. Investing. Placing the needs, desires and wants of the individual, of the one behind those of the other.

Because Love invests and Love risks.

It risks everything.

And gains the whole world and a life of love.

Love is risky business, but oh the glorious, indescribable, unfathomable reward.

STOP

Here Comes A Story

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Grab that story.  

Yes that one.

The one that’s yours.

It’s got your name written all over it. Claim it. Cuddle it.  Embrace it. Savor it.

It is yours after all.  With all its pieces and parts.  What is your story, morning glory?  What are your beginnings, happy endings, messy middles. Your pauses to celebrate, your pauses to regenerate, and re-calibrate.  To learn and gleen.

Did you dog-ear a page, here and there. And did you highlight and re-read. Did you you thank the One who gave you all.  Did you rest on the pages and say this here and that there are places of  Grace.  Places of Mercy.  Places of prayer, answered.

Are you seeing it all, the nuances and layers of love. The places in between blended in between the first and second acts, where He loves and loves some more.  And sends His Savior, Son to take all the pain.

You know those parts of that story of yours. The painful parts that sting and hurt. Where the salty streams run down the cheek and bump-over the face craters, face mountains and valleys, then glide down the silhouette side, to round the chin corner. Like a stream finding its way, taking a slow winding path down pebbled speed bumps of  face. Bone, flesh, and pore drowned in salted streams.

A winged chapter glides by, you might miss it. A part and a piece fly by, grab hold, all kite-tailed happy, catch it and glide.  Ride it and sail.

Once upon a time parts are just once, that’s singular, not plural, once to behold times. Just once to partake times, simply once in a blue moon.  Once in that life-time. Not twice upon a time. Not there will be re-runs and do-overs and repeat performance times, once upon a time are once for you times.

Live your story well.

Run that story well.

Let His Son play a major role, a leading part. He is the star in your performance.  His is the best story ever lived. He will walk it out and be in every chapter and verse. What Glory and Honor do we give the One who gave us all.

He the Author and Designer of these our lives, this our life, any and all that we have.  Release it back to Him.

I give Him my story and thank Him for each part.

Taken off the wing of the One who sent it soaring in.

And sent back to to Him.

On wings to soar up and out, returning to Him, the Creator of All and any.

All and any that I ever claim as mine.

What a story, morning glory. The your story, my story, the our stories.

My once upon a time is just once upon a time and I celebrate all the times of this Life, this story is mine.

May this Sabbath be filled with thanking, and grabbing story, reigning it in and recommitting it all to Him.

Every good and perfect gift is from above—James 1:17

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Eyes To See Like He Sees

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

{Today I am linking up over at Lisa Jo’s for some fun on Friday. Today we are writing for five minutes on the word prompt see. No editing, no over thinking, just writing for five minutes. Come see what the fun is all about at The Gypsy Mama’s blog. Ready, go, write}

I see him there.  Yes right there working through this preparation to go off to camp, no its not off to war.  We had dinner with a friend this week, he’d just gotten that call.  You know the dreaded one, his nephew had just been shot in Afghanistan.  No its not that.

The eyes of my head see the mess, the struggle, the confusion, the ADHD still there tangling up the processes of life.

Messy messes and turmoil.  No organization.  Upheaval.  The eyes of my heart know that it is this.

I have seen this for years now, how it challenges and entangles and strangles.

Today he leaves for camp and I will see through blurry eyes a child soon to be a man, in months now, walking out the door to be a counselor, to help others.

And I know that when he walks back in the door I will see transformation and change. I will see maturity and new talents and experiences that have jumped on his back for the trip back home.

But more than anything while he is gone, I want to learn to see him through the eyes of God.  To see past and through and deeply down into his inner places of hurt and pain, the way God sees.

Kingdom eyes please give me the eyes to see like You.

STOP