Today I join this writing community for Five Minute Friday with the prompt, Beyond.  Writing briefly from the overflow of the heart.

Just five minutes of writing.  No editing, no over-thinking, no back tracking.  This challenges me to walk in freedom.  I challenge you to do the same.  Cozy up in your own place and write for just five minutes.  In your journal, on a napkin, at your laptop right in front of you now.  Just. Write

Two weeks ago the lonely ache returns like the wind bringing winters chill.  And it freezes me into a ball on my bed, with hot tears streaming down the face asking this question once again.  Is this the price I pay to be a clergy wife that moves to a new city every few years:  Only friendships with women like water droplets on plastic, never to go below the surface?

I spill empty right there in that quiet room.  See how this is such a small sacrifice, this not having intimate friendships, when I think about the sacrifice He made for me.  I let go of what makes the heart ache and I didn’t realize it then, that this kind of dying is how we become full of joy.

Because in my dying to what I think I need, He fills with what satisfies.

And almost every day since the lonely cloud looms heavy, I accept an invitation to be in the company of friends old and new.  He lavishes love beyond expectation in the answer of invitation.

I accept each on like a guest at the wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14).  On the beach pushing toes in sand; at the rod iron table under the umbrella at Starbucks; seated around a dining table with travellers; among the white linens overlooking the ocean; standing around a kitchen island; on a patio basking in sun’s warmth.

 

And I realize in each conversation, that the lonely cloud hangs its canopy over each of us.  The ache to receive understanding, share hearts in genuine authenticity and trust, and find acceptance.  Push away the empty calories and eat from the table that satisfies.  Savor each morsel from His banquet table.

Like an ambulance pulling up to a wreck, He gives love that fuels the flame of joy, almost snuffed out, and helps me see clear.

That this is the lesson of loneliness:  It takes you to places you wouldn’t have gone to see things you couldn’t see before. Beyond circumstance, into His loving arms of grace.