Five Minute Fridays

Five-Minute Friday: Writer

April 5, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

Today’s Five-Minute Friday comes to you from a roomy bungalow situated on a breezy Costa Rican beach.

I know, I know, everyone hates me now. Last week Paris, and now this? It’s another gift-trip, and we’ve had to pinch ourselves. In between loving every minute of it.

So the writing prompt, this week, is WRITER. And I know that because I had to take a timeout this afternoon. To write.

My 3-year-old napped, and my husband and big kids took an ATV tour (with monkeys and snakes). I stole away from a handful of pools with their frozen drinks, from hangout time with friends and the kids’ nonstop laughter, from catching them sneak extra drinks at the swim-up bar and from the sunshine I’ve been desperate to meet up with again after a long, hard winter. (Northerners, I mean no disrespect. Your winter won, hands down.)

I couldn’t wait for this pocket of time, because there’s this thing I cannot shake. It won’t let me go. I have to write. I am a writer.

I look for time day after day, and don’t always find it. Because I am not only a writer. I schedule time, and it doesn’t always work out the way I plan. Sometimes, I end up writing with wrestlers grunting a few feet away or a preschooler on my lap or a little princess brushing my hair, or in between frosting bread with peanut butter and jelly, because the merry-go-round rarely stops and I can’t always find a quiet space with time attached.

But I still write, because somehow I must make sense of things and this is how I figure out what life is teaching me or where my heart is in a given moment.

My husband shakes his head and says, “Really? You really want to do that when no one is making you?” The way I shake my head about his mornings of leaving this bungalow at 5 am to spend hours in the cold, pruning water where the sharks live paddling around on a board, looking for another ride on a wave. Five AM! Did I mention that?

But yes. For both of us, the answer is yes.

Even though writing’s the thing to do these days and I don’t like doing what everyone else is doing. Even though I hate the idea of platform-building. I wanted to write at age 6, and for 30 years after. So I write.

I still don’t know what I am meant to do as a writer. I want to love God and bring Him glory, through my writing. I want to love people. I want to grow deeper faith and live it in the routine of my daily life. I want to grasp His grace, more and more. I want to help someone, anyone, with anything I can offer. You know, just a few small aspirations. 🙂

But I know, as certain as I know my name, as easy as I wear my other titles. I know because this is what I actually do, because I have always done it to some extent, because when I don’t do it, I can feel it, and it feels exactly wrong.

Because day after day, I write.

I am a Writer.

STOP.

*Find out more about Five-Minute Fridays here.

Small {Five-Minute Friday}

February 22, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

He climbs up on his Captain’s bed, stands tall and grabs onto little wooden sailboats floating from the ceiling. “Look, Mom, I getting this big! Now I can get the boats, Mom!”

He knows he’s the little one around here, and three’s as good an age as any to aspire to greatness.

I remember when I couldn’t wait to get bigger. Do you? I wanted to do everything all by my big self and keep up with my big sister and cousins. I dreamed of arriving, and there’s nothing wrong with looking forward.

But today he applauds his growth, and I cheer him on. You grow up thinking growth looks like climbing, increasing, spreading influence. You come up hoping to make something of your one little life.

Yet Jesus came in the quiet, small and helpless. He waited out childhood and grew through awkward years and lived three decades of limitations.

I think of how Infinite made himself finite, to live His Father’s plan. He became a man of flesh to reveal God’s glory and His coming redemption–to reveal it to all of creation.

But people cared more about climbing. People have always cared more to achieve greatness, to accomplish, to make a name for ourselves.

Jesus’ disciples asked Him, Which way to greatness? He rattled our concept of greatness with His answer.

Be like a little child.

Humble yourself.

Serve.

Set aside your own needs, and become a slave to the needs of others.

Forgive every wrong done toward you.

Go last.

Give your life.

Every day, we choose–elevate and climb, or lay ourselves low and serve. We choose to reach for the greatness of the finite, or the greatness of the Infinite.

Still the words of Jesus echo–Be small, my child, be small.

*This is another Five Minute Friday post…find out more about FMF here.

Garden {Five Minute Friday}

February 14, 2014 By: Angela Parlin

Out the sliding glass door of our kitchen, past the homemade supersized deck, Mom kept the garden of my childhood.

All summer long, hair secured in a ponytail, she wore her swimsuit like a uniform. She tended our garden, pulling weeds on repeat. I still recall the taste of dirt on green beans straight from that garden, the only dirt I’ve ever enjoyed.

We remember what we remember, and gardens pluck memories long hidden.

Back then, gardens were necessary, both for budgets and strawberry rhubarb pies. Mom baked from scratch, before we learned a hundred varieties of flour, before we lost hours engrossed in conflicting research, choosing between taste and nutritional value.

The garden reminds me of a time before life got hurried and sterile. When we spent long summer days running through our above-ground pool yelling Marco…Polo. We slathered pale skin with olive oil and dumped lemon juice on big heads of hair. We lounged around the deck on black blankets, next to a fat, orange Fluffy cat who shared a towel with a happy little dachshund named Scooter.

Those were the days before life became processed and plastic. Before we took daddy steps to ensure all our opportunities came safety-guaranteed. We knew there were no guarantees then. It wasn’t just a slogan. We didn’t believe in perfect.

We lived simply. We pulled weeds and watered, enjoyed the angel food cake, and carried on neighborly conversations across lawns in the middle of the day.

I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to garden successfully anymore. Time, for one, to understand this art. Consistency, attention, green sense… I fall short. I relate more to plastic than I do to earth, sometimes. I understand formulas, little screens filled with words, and the importance of success.

But I long for a time I can remember. For summer, childhood, a simple garden that fed us all, with regular old dirt and seeds and sunshine and water. Unfiltered and messy, days made easy.

**This is another Five Minute Friday post with Lisa-Jo Baker. Lisa just introduced a project she’s excited about today, to build a sustainable community in her homeland, South Africa. Phase 1 will be a community GARDEN! You can find out more about this project here. I’d love for you to visit and take part in this opportunity.

Grace~The Plunge {Five-Minute Fridays}

November 1, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker and the Five-Minute Friday crowd for the prompt, Grace. Feel free to join in!

~GRACE~ pool2

Long ago, I jumped into the pool. The water covered me. All was right with the world, and clear. This pool was not like any other. It didn’t make my hair turn green, or my skin prune, or my teeth chatter. I wanted to stay forever.

I didn’t stay in though. I retreated to the steps. For a while, I remained on the first step, where only my feet sank. Later, I stepped down further, and the water covered more of me. Now and then, a little courage would propel me forward. I would leave the certainty of the steps and swim nearby.

But I never went far, because of my fear, and because of the voices.

Some of the voices shouted from outside the pool–warning me, taunting me, lying to me. They said, Get out, or at least stay there where it’s safe. Other voices came from those sharing the crowded steps. They were afraid, and so was I. Sometimes I shared my fears and became a voice they heard.

Every once in a while, some juvenile swimmer would defy all our feelings, would swim past fear and paddle past doubt out into the heart of that pool. Humbly, triumphantly, even desperately they swam out into the deep end.

And there they’d stay. They grew at home in the deep end, and never returned to crowded steps at the edge of the pool.

We looked at each other, bewildered. How could they swim so far? At least here, on the steps, our feet had something to stand on. What if they got tired of swimming, what then? I didn’t understand.

But I watched their courage afloat. Instead of paddling hard, they were holding out hands to one another, their eyes fixed higher.

How many times I wanted to go! Little flashes of inspiration, big mountain-top moments, a Word that struck something deep within me…I wanted to try the deep end of the pool for myself. But the voices holding me back, they didn’t stop. They shouted loudly when I felt inspired to go. I had developed a voice of my own by then, too. A reasonable voice, which reminded me to be content and live within my abilities.

But then I noticed what all the brave floaters’ eyes were fixed on. I saw the Lifeguard. His eyes caught mine, and I turned away. When I glanced back, He was still watching. Waiting. Yes, you. And then He said my name! Come!

This was more than a little flash of inspiration. This was the moment I stopped cowering and took the plunge. I started living. I barely paddled, but with eyes fixed on the Lifeguard, floated to my new home, at the deep end of the pool, the pool of grace.

After grieving for the years of misunderstanding–time when life was right here, so close, and yet so far away–I learned to move about effortlessly, and full.

It didn’t take long to discover that grace would take a lifetime, or more, to fully grasp. So I would remain. Trusting, at rest, afloat the rest of my days in the infinity pool of grace.

STOP.

Ordinary {Five Minute Friday}

October 11, 2013 By: Angela Parlin

I am linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker and the Five-Minute Friday crowd once again, with the one-word prompt: Ordinary. Feel free to join in!

Here are my best words on Ordinary (GO!):

Ordinary. Just a word, but a loaded one.

I wonder how many of us have lived years of ordinary.

Years of being a masterpiece, but not believing. We are living, breathing works of art.

It seems too far to stretch. So we live ordinary, hidden.

The good news is, eventually we learn to see ourselves and the world through wiser eyes. We see the beauty in all types of others, and finally see the beauty in ourselves.

It turns out none of us is ordinary. We are God’s works of art, that’s what. God’s masterpieces!

To be or not to be? That is not the question, but this:

Will we live as the extraordinary art we already are?

Will we put the painting on display?

Follow the nudge to reach out?

Reject the perceived standard of perfection and offer ourselves, who we are, what we have?

Author, Emily Freeman, recently released an amazing book, A Million Little Ways, on this topic. She offered 3 words earlier this year that are still unleashing volumes in me. Go make art.

Go. Make. Art.

Knowing your art will likely not be the best art out there. Make it anyway.

Your art could be singing or dancing or painting or writing or baking or encouraging or teaching or caring or playing or anything else. What did He make you to do?

The way to live extraordinary is to do it. To live it.

To be the friend you want to have.

To love every soul who crosses your path.

To hold the door, and share your umbrella.

To offer a smile that makes somebody’s day.

To keep your heart open and ears listening.

To tell what Jesus has done for you.

To teach with heart and bake with abandon.

To load dishes prayerfully, clean messes patiently, and fold laundry thankfully.

Sometimes our art–who we are–is buried, hidden, withdrawn. Sometimes we miss golden opportunities to love and give ourselves to the world around us. Sometimes we talk about our life like it’s just so ordinary.

But we are masterpieces, friends. Nothing in who we are is ever ordinary.

STOP.

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Five-Minute Friday: Writer

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Small {Five-Minute Friday}

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Garden {Five Minute Friday}

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Grace~The Plunge {Five-Minute Fridays}

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Ordinary {Five Minute Friday}

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