When Change Looks The Same... a Five Minute Friday post

Oh my how I have missed my tribe! Life got a little crazy, and hard, and crazy hard and it was near impossible to sit in this chair and tap out words... but it was so great to be back at the #fmfparty over on Twitter tonight! I have missed those friends and the community there!

This is Five Minute Friday (- a five minute timed free write) and our One Word Prompt for the day is: SAME

{GO}

Oh My! It's funny how I can write about Change and how I am learning to embrace it, but what I really mean is that I am learning to not be too caught off guard by it and I am embracing it when it's something I can clearly see is Gods' doing.

But what about those unwanted changes? What about the ones that you are more than convinced are from the opposite of God and you are not at all interested in going along with the possibilities it may bring? 

What about the changes that look the same? They are oh so familiar and they revisit those old scars, threatening to pick them apart, to cut deeper and wider this time around?

Yeah.  What about those?

I don't remember signing up to read Girl Meets Change by Kristen Strong but I got an early copy and am diving in to it, trusting that God knows what He is doing. 

I tried to distract myself by reading Every Little Thing by Deidra Riggs last weekend and oh my goodness, she just couldn't help it but to get all up in my grill. Or... you know... whatever.  She was challenging me in all the best ways but it didn't feel like a good time. 

As in - it felt like the worst possible time.  

As in - can I not just wallow over here and nurse these wounds? Can I not, at least for a few days, NOT be the one to hold out grace and turn the other cheek, be the better person, and let love win?

This unexpected, unwelcome Change... it's unexpected, but it's anything but new.  Oh - we have walked this way before... step by step, and it breaks my heart that it doesn't turn a corner and fall into a happy ending. But it just doesn't. Instead it leaves us broken on the kitchen floor and yet here we are again... breaking, weak-kneed, and holding on to grace for ourselves. We need it for us... but, if I am honest, I don't want it for them. (Not yet anyway. Not here and now... maybe later!)

We want the Same that dates back to before, --the one that was in the good ol' days before everyone was all busted up and broken... not the one that dates back to the lies and the blindside hit... the losing of breath and hope and trust.

We don't want that Same. 

We want a different result... a different ending. 
We want the moral of the story to be clear and swift, but we want mercy to (mostly) triumph over judgment... and well --honestly, we just want what we want.

But in the end, this time around, we know who we are and we know even better who He is and we trust. This time around, we trust. We are not broken, even though we are breaking... He is faithful and He will heal. We trust... and that is what makes this Same, different this time!

That's just it. We won't give in to fear or be manipulated in to doubt. We lean in and we trust anyway - even when the outlook is bleak and hope is hiding. 

We know He is here... and He is working... and we want to trust, to hope, to believe... 

And ultimately we want what HE wants more than what we want. 

Or at least we want to want that...

{STOP}

We really do not want to go around this Same Mountain again! Each time around, we are stronger... but we forget that and it sure doesn't feel like truth. It feels a bit like dying... like being breathless and bleeding out... like dreams fading and paths turning the wrong way again and the enemy whispers lies that we refuse to entertain.

Yeah. This time around the mountain, we know the way out. The way out is not around... No. The way out is always down. Laying it all down at His feet, trading these heavy burdens for His yoke that is easy, trusting and worshiping anyway... 

We bow down and He lifts us up, and we look full in His wonderful face...

Linking up with Kate Motaung and the #fmfparty Community today.  Five Minute Fridays gives us the chance to dive right in and share what He puts on our hearts! Click here to read what others have to say about "SAME"

The FMF lowdown: I can't say it enough, really - I love my tribe! The gathering happens on Twitter on Thursday nights and then  we write our hearts out and hit publish all over the interwebs on Thursday and Friday (and sometimes on Tuesdays!) It's where we encourage and uplift... where we share prayer requests and praise reports... where we talk food and friends and we find support and kindred hearts and we are reminded that life is good and God is good and we are not alone... and then we all write for five minutes flat, a flash mob of wordsmiths letting our hearts and our fingers do the talking tapping and we hit publish before we can second guess it all away. We'd love to have you join us!