Today I join this writing community for Five Minute Friday with the prompt, Relevant.  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

This life of faith, it is like dog chasing tail for me some days.  How He speaks, then I receive His promises with joy . . . until the next trial.  Then it is if I have dementia, forget what He said just yesterday and circle around, go to scavenge truth once again.

And as I read yesterday, in the company of friends seated in a circle, about the life of Mary I see how her life is relevant to my life today.  The way the angel came to her with that radical good news.  The news about how she would carry the Savior of the world inside her. 

How her first response is confusion upon hearing the message. (Luke 1:29-34) She asks why and how could this be?

We do this don’t we?  When circumstances show contrary and we can’t see beyond them.  Ask why?

Why me?

You want me to do what?

How?

All those years of abiding, knowing the sweetness of His presence, and then something comes from outside the paradigm of our understanding.  It is like the brain empties and we have to fill it again, remember who He is, who we are, what the truth says.

This questioning, it provides clarity.  We reason, ponder, struggle with what we don’t understand and wait. 

Like Mary waited those nine months to give birth to the ultimate gift and hope for the world.  The way she waited all those years for others to know what she held in her heart.  Kept the promise deep inside knowing she would follow her own son one day.

I hold His promises like this too.

Revelation, it comes like mudslide.  This questioning lies in the streams of expectancy.  Because when we question Him, we expect to hear an answer.  And the answer comes in abiding.  It is like water to a thirsty soul. 

Like Mary, I pray that my response to Him will echo, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May everything you have said about me come true.”