AN ANNIVERSARY, A THROWBACK, AND AN FMF PROMPT

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--ENGAGE

Five minutes to free-write about it

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Once again, I have a dilemma. How to get the word prompt to fit with what I'd like to share, since I really would like to engage with my FMF friends and participate in the challenge. 

Yesterday, was my blog's 18th anniversary, and my plan was to write a special post to commemorate the occasion. Instead, I found myself engaged in so many things the day escaped me and I completely forgot. 

In hindsight, what I should have done was pre-write the post and schedule it to post on the day of. 

Among the things I had wanted to share was how a few days ago I came across an old e-mail sent to me by my first blog friend 14 years ago. It brought back memories of my very first blog post, and of how she had been the first person to leave me a comment. 

She no longer blogs, so I sent her a message on Facebook and we engaged in a nice little chat. A lot of water has flowed beneath both our bridges during the past 18 years, and it felt good to touch base and engage with her again.

So that's it for my five minutes this week. The rest of this post is a throwback. It's a reprint of that very first post to commemorate both my blog's 18th birthday, and 18 years of a bloggie friendship. (I've added a link to the original post in case you would like to read that very first comment she left me as well.)

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"I do not understand what I do. ...For what I do is not the
good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I
keep on doing." (Romans 7:15,19)

Frustration at not being able to set up this blog page to look the way I want it to has led me to open up the tightly sealed tub of Trader Joe Triple Ginger Snap cookies made with fresh crystallized ginger that I had bought for my daughter Joanne to try, and "hidden" away until I see her. Bad move! I knew that Trader Joe Triple Ginger Snaps is not something I should have in my house, but I thought that putting them out of sight would keep me from eating any. Ha! That tub of cookies is now 12 lighter. I hope I get to see Joanne soon.

This takes my thoughts way back to a Christmas eons ago when I lived in Jackson Heights and had a good friend, "British" Margaret, who loved those huge, oversized Cadbury chocolate bars with the fruit and nuts, and the caramel, and I don't even remember what all else. That Christmas I decided that the perfect gift for her would be one of each kind. I think there were six varieties, which I purchased, wrapped ever so carefully, and put under the Christmas tree.

Now there were two problems I hadn't considered, and which proved to be my undoing. Number one, I also loved those huge, oversized Cadbury bars, AND, Margaret didn't show up the day before Christmas to pick up her gift as planned.

Christmas came and went, and after a few days of seeing that carefully wrapped gift all alone under the tree, I couldn't take it any longer. It seemed to be calling my name, and after a brief struggle with my conscience, gluttony got the best of me. Carefully I unwrapped the gift, slid out one Cadbury, and rewrapped the other five. She will never be the wiser, I rationalized. Still Margaret did not come, and I wound up repeating this shameful process five more times.

When my good friend Margaret finally dropped by, I had no gift to give her. How embarrassing! Fortunately she was a real sport about it, and we ended up having a good hearty chuckle. Hope this doesn't turn out to be deja vu where Joanne's cookies are concerned.

JOURNEY

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--JOURNEY

Five minutes to free-write about it

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This week I have a dilemma. How to get the word prompt to fit with what I really want to share. I had been hoping for a perfect word, but it's not. So please bear with me, even though it's going to be a stretch.

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During my post salvation journey through life, the Lord has, on several occasions, reminded me not to put Him in a box. He has shown me that even though He often answers prayer by using people as His hands and feet to bring about the desired result, even when there's no one available, He can do it anyway. 

Five minutes is not long enough to mention all the times He did this, but here are two. 

The first incident happened fairly early in my journey and is documented here (if you would like to read the details). 

In brief, I had wanted to make a gift for the ladies in one of my Bible study groups but was having trouble figuring out how to go about it. None of my artsy-crafty friends I had been counting on for help were home, and it was time sensitive, so I prayed an urgent prayer, and the Lord answered. Thoughts started popping into my mind, and step by step He guided me through the whole process, by way of that still small voice within. 

The finished product was not what I had envisioned. It was way more creative than anything I could have hoped for or imagined being able to put together without a live, flesh-and-blood person to show me how.

The second incident happened just a few days ago. 

Many of you know about my accident on Christmas Day when I fell face down on the concrete sidewalk while getting out of my granddaughter's car. What I didn't mention (because I didn't know at the time), was that a chip off of one of the two chipped teeth had gotten embedded in my lip. 

Long story short, I had been using a drawing salve to try and bring the chip to the surface so it could be removed without surgery, and after several weeks it did journey its way up, but not actually through. 

A couple of friends offered to extract it for me, but being the wimp that I am, I did not want anyone poking around my mouth.

I continued applying the salve and praying for the chip to make its way out. Finally, on a day when I thought a tiny corner of it might be poking through, and I was trying to muster up the courage to grab hold of it with a tweezers and try pulling it out myself, the Lord stepped in and helped me out by taking care of it Himself.

While flossing my teeth that night, a piece of the floss got caught on that tiny piece of chip and pulled it out just far enough so I could easily remove it with my fingers. 

Is that an awesome testimony about the journey of a chip or what!

FEELING BAMBOOZLED

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--PURSUE

Five minutes to free-write about it

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Today's pursuit of bargains did not do me well. 

I was at the Dollar Tree store, and instead of just buying what I went in there for, I decided to browse the aisles and see if there were any unusual bargains. 

On my stroll through the gardening supplies aisle I spotted two bags of Miracle-Gro potting soil sitting on a half-empty shelf. It seemed too good to be true, so I grabbed them both. My mind was full of thanksgiving and thoughts of the great testimony I would later share on my blog about this miraculous and unexpected stroke of good fortune. 

So great was my excitement over this find, that's all I could think about, and I mindlessly paid the bill without paying attention to what I was actually being charged (easy to do when you use a card instead of cash). In the car though, I did start to wonder about it, and pondered how the few items I had purchased could possibly have come to a total of $15.

When I got home and checked my bill, I felt totally bamboozled as I realized those bags had been placed in the wrong aisle, and had cost me $5 each instead of $1.25. 

In the big scheme of things, that was hardly tragic. I needed potting soil anyway. But back in the day there was something else I had pursued and thought I had found that really could have led to tragedy had the Lord Himself not come to my rescue. 

Five minutes is not long enough to go into the details, but for anyone who is interested, it is all documented in my memoir, SINCERELY WRONG: An Improbable Journey.  

Do not be deceived, as I was, into thinking that there are many paths to God. There is only one path we can pursue that will lead us there, and that is Jesus.

Because of Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden, we are all born into a fallen world, and because of sin we are separated from our Heavenly Father by a vast gulf that we cannot cross through our own efforts. Jesus is the only path to eternal life. The Bible tells us in John 14:6 that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can come to the Father except through Him.

The good news is that God so loved the world (you and me included) that He sent Jesus to die for our sins on the cross so that "whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

This gift of salvation can only be received by grace, through faith. It cannot be earned by good works (Ephesians 2:8-9), and even though it is not God's will for anyone to perish, He will not impose His will on you or force you to accept it. The choice is yours.

ORIGINAL

This post was written for Five Minute Friday

Word prompt--ORIGINAL

Five minutes to free-write about it

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This week's prompt reminded me of a post I wrote many years ago when I was feeling discouraged about how few people visited my blog and was debating whether or not it was worth keeping alive. There was this little voice in my head that kept trying to convince me I had nothing special to offer; that whatever I had to say had already been said by someone else, and said better; and that none of my thoughts were really original.

Well, the answer lay in a devotion in one of my favorite devotionals, Streams In The Desert, which recounted the story of a king who goes into his garden one morning and finds everything withered and dying, so he starts asking the plants what the problem is.  

The oak says it doesn't want to live any more because it's not tall and beautiful like the pine tree, the pine tree is upset because it can't bear grapes like the grapevine, the grapevine laments the fact that that it doesn't produce fruit as large as the peaches on the peach tree, the geranium is disheartened because it's not tall and fragrant like the lilac, and so on it goes throughout the garden until the king gets to the little violet and comments on how happy he is to see at least one flower bright and perky.  To which the violet responds that she knows she's small, but she thought that if he had wanted an oak or a peach tree or a lilac in that spot he would have planted one there instead of her, so she was determined to be the best little violet she could be. 

The devotion ends with a little poem  that is a great reminder not to compare ourselves with others. Each one of us is a Divine original created for a special purpose that no one else can fulfill.  

                                   Others may do a greater work,
                                        But you have your part to do;
                                  And no one in all God's family
                                       Can do it as well as you.

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I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made... 

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for 

me were written in your book before one of them came to 

be.  (Psalm139:14a, 16, NIV)