Five Minute Friday ~ Why

It's been a while since I have done a five minute Friday post, so here goes.

Why?
I have been asking myself that question a lot over the past couple of months.
Why am I going through this trial?
Why am I the only one under this stress?
Why is God not fixing things?
Why did a family member die so quickly?
Why?

We seem to ask ourselves and others this question when we just don't understand. I have been going through some trying times since the beginning of this year and I have asked God "Why?" After questioning Him, He sends someone along to remind me that I am not alone. I just need to trust Him and trust that He knows what He is doing. It is difficult at times to not question God, but He is there and will always be there with you. He will send a reminder just when you are about to break. He will send a reminder just when you feel like there is no one that would understand your situation. He is there and will always be there.

Isaiah 41:10 ~ Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

I am linking up with:
and Five Minute Friday

I is for In Review

I can’t believe in less than 3 weeks that this year will be over and it will be 2018.

Here are my top posts for each month for this year. Click on the pictures to see the post.

January

February

March

April (there was a tie)

May

June

July

August

September

October

November (there was a tie)

December (so far)

I am linking up at:

Hopkins Homeschool

31 days of Five Minute Free Writes ~ Create

Day 3 of the Five Minute Friday free writes prompt. The word for today is create

When I saw this word, the first thing that popped into my head was making things in our homeschool. We create a lot of things over the year and have created many things over the past 12 years that we have been homeschooling. And I am sure there will be many more things that are created over the next several years until my youngest graduates.

The next thing that came to mind when I saw this word is the verse found in Psalm 51. Verse 10 says “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. What does it mean to create a clean heart in me? David wrote this Psalm after he had sinned with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. He was desperate to have a renewed heart with God. Because he knew he did wrong, he wanted to have a clean slate with God. He wanted to erase the sin from his life. He knew that only God is able to forget our sins. Even if we can’t forget them, when we pray to God with a sincere heart to forgive our sins, He is able to just erase them and forget them.

Give your sins over to God no matter how big you think they are. He will take them from you and erase them from His memory and give you a clean and renewed heart and spirit today.

31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes ~ Worship

I have decided to join in this month on the Five Minute Friday blog and write about what the prompt is for that day for five minutes. The first prompt is worship.

What is worship? To me, worship is fellowshipping with God. Even when I am in a crowded place such as a church, I can reach the point of worship where I am fellowshipping with my Saviour. And in that moment, it is just me and Him. If we allow ourselves to fully worship, He will change us. He will draw us closer to Him.

One of my favorite worship songs is “Spirit of the Living God” by Meredith Andrews. I love the lyrics of the song and the following really speak to me:

When You come in the room

When You do what only You can do

It changes us, it changes

What we see and what we seek

You're changing everything

When we allow worship into our lives, God will change us. He will change the way we speak, the way we see, and He can only do it if we allow Him to do it.

Will you allow God to speak to you today? Will you allow worship to take place within you? Today is a great day to fellowship and worship with your Saviour.

Psalm 29:2 (KJV) ~ “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Five Minute Friday ~ Collect

What do I collect? To be honest, I've really never collected anything until I was in college. Back then, I started collecting anything that had or was a giraffe after playing a game. I stopped collecting giraffes soon after I began having children. Now, as a homeschool mom, I collect books. I cannot go to a library sale or any discount or thrift store and come out empty handed. I always find something that I think I am going to read or use with my children. So, now I have boxes and boxes of books that I have collected waiting to be used. My youngest is in 1st grade now and I have started to go through the books to see what I have and what I can use with her. I also have pulled some out for my older kids to read through this school year. I love books! And I probably won't stop collecting books for a long time.

I'm linking up over at the Five Minute Friday blog.

Five Minute Friday ~ Empty

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a five minute Friday. This week’s word prompt is “empty.” It’s simple to post a blog post- just write for five minutes. Five minute Friday is hosted over at Heading Home.

Empty ~

What does it mean to be empty? It means to be void of something. During this Easter holiday weekend, Christians rejoice over the tomb being empty. But there are so many people in the world that have an empty feeling every day. They feel they have no purpose. Even as a Christian, I sometimes feel empty. It is then that I know that I need to be reading His Word. When I am regularly reading my Bible, I never feel empty. I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Knowing Jesus keeps me from feeling like I am worthless and empty. He has me on this earth for a reason and I need to seek Him and do His will while I am still here. We need to rejoice in knowing that the tomb is empty! Jesus wants us to be happy. He wants us to tell others of him. Rejoice! Jesus has risen!

Psalm 28:7 ~ The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.

Five Minute Friday ~ Refine

This weeks word prompt is refine.

I automatically remembered a song from when I was growing up, The Refiner’s Fire, sung by Steve Green.

The lyrics to the chorus:

The Refiner’s fire
Has now become my souls desire
Purged and cleansed and purified
That the Lord be glorified
He is consuming my soul
Refining me, making me whole
No matter what I may lose
I choose the Refiner’s fire

What does it mean to be refined? Well, according to Merriam Webster, it means to free (something, such as metal, sugar, or oil) from impurities or unwanted material, to free from moral imperfection, to improve or perfect by pruning or polishing, to reduce in vigor or intensity, to free from what is coarse, vulgar, or uncouth.

But, it also means to become pure or perfected, to make improvement by introducing subtleties or distinctions.

We, as Christians, should always want to be perfected by our Lord (the refiner). He takes us and molds us and makes us whole. We are to make improvements by reading the Bible and praying. We can become pure and perfected by giving our everything to the Lord. Even though it may hurt to go into the fire, when we come out we will be free from sin (impurities).

Five Minute Friday ~ Middle

Today's word prompt for five minute Friday is middle. The rules are simple- just write for five minutes.

When I think about the word middle, I think about several things. One of the things I think about is the tv show called The Middle. Another thing I think about is my precious middle children. My son became a middle child at 2 years old and my daughter became a middle child at 5 1/2 years old. My son has not really known anything other than being the middle child. I grew up as the baby of the family, so I don't really know much about being stuck in the middle. I know that sometimes, for him, he gets pushed to the side or doesn't get to do something his older brother or younger sisters get to do. I try to remember to give my middle children the attention that they need. I have let my middle son come with me to the store without the others (even though I would rather go by myself). For my older daughter, it is a little different. She was the baby for over 5 years. She remembers what it was like not being in the middle. I also try to give her attention without her little sister tagging along. We have been out on a mother/daughter date of just the two of us and had a wonderful time. She needs to get away from her little sister (and older brothers) every once in a while. So, while I am not a middle and don't know what it is like to be in the middle, I still try to give my middles attention and love.

Five Minute Friday ~ Connect

Last year, I was introduced to five minute Friday writing prompts hosted on the blog Heading Home. The rules are simple, just write for 5 minutes on the word prompt. The first word prompt for this year is connect.

When I think about the word connect, I think about connecting to the internet. I grew up during the dial-up time of the internet. It was difficult having to wait to connect and sometimes it just wouldn't connect at all. Then, I would get connected only to have my mother tell me to get off the internet because she needed to call someone. If only our children (or grandchildren if you have them) knew how difficult it was to get connected to the internet. Wow! They would be shocked to not have that instant connection.

There is one connection that has always been instant and will always be instant until God returns to bring us to His home with him. How do we keep an instant connection with God? It's fairly simple, read His word and pray every day. Remember that song you use to sing at church, "read your Bible, pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow." Reading your Bible and praying every day keeps an instant connection to God. He loves us and wants to keep that connection with us.

Five Minute Friday ~ Joy

It's time again for another five minute Friday. This week's prompt is the word Joy. Hosted over on Kate's blog, Heading Home.


Go...
What do I think about when I think about the word Joy? I think about years past when I learned the acronym for the word JOY in Sunday school - Jesus, Others, You. It is a simple way to remember to always put Jesus first in your life and He will give you true joy. I also think about the song Joy to the World, especially at this time of the year. Joy to the World, the Lord is come! Joy to the World, the Saviour reigns! The whole word should have been joyful when Christ was born. The world should also be joyful that He reigns over the earth. He is the one who has a plan for everything. Be joyful, the Lord has come and He reigns!

Stop.

Five Minute Friday ~ Crave

Today's word prompt from the five minute Friday blog is Crave.

What do you crave? Most of us crave food items from time to time. Or we crave other things. But do we ever crave the Bible? Do we crave God? I have to admit that I don't crave God like I should. We talked about this in Sunday School recently and it has stuck with me. There are things we need in order to live. Air, food, water, and shelter. Without those things, we would eventually die. As a Christian, I also need God in my life. I need to crave God. In order to fulfill this craving, I need to be reading from the Bible and listening to God's Word. Here are a few passages about craving God.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:1-2 (KJV)

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
John 4:13-14 (KJV)

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
Psalm 63:1 (KJV) 

 I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.
Psalm 143:6 (KJV)

Five Minute Friday ~ Surrender

This week's five minute Friday word is surrender. I realize the "rules" are to just write freely for five minutes with no editing and no over-thinking, but when I saw the word I had to do a little digging.

Go...
When I saw the word for this week's five minute Friday, the first thing that popped into my head was the song I Surrender All. I've sung it many times in church, but never stopped to really think about what it means. So, I just googled about the author and how he came to write the song. It was written in 1896 by Judson W. Van DeVenter after he came to the decision to be a full-time evangelist. We are to surrender everything when we follow God's will for our lives. He will take care of us.

All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live. 

Refrain:
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my bless'd Savior,
I surrender all. 

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now. 

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine. 

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me. 

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation!

Stop.

Five Minute Friday ~ Enjoy

It's time once again for the five minute Friday word.

Enjoy. There are many things I enjoy. For instance, I enjoy these five minute Friday posts. They are enjoyable to write and also to read what others write. I also enjoy many things in life, like eating. Yes, I am not going to lie, I love to eat. I enjoy seeing the looks on my children's faces as they learn something new. I am happy that I am the one to be able to teach them. I enjoy having my children around. Sometimes, I do need to get away and have a break though. I enjoy when the weather changes. My favorite seasons that I enjoy are fall and spring. In the fall, the leaves change color. In the spring, new leaves appear. I also enjoy watching movies. We have so many in our collection, but I can re-watch a lot of them several times. It makes me happy. I enjoy going to my church on Sunday and Wednesday. I love the fellowship. I enjoy the sermons. Enjoy the little things.

Five Minute Friday ~ Common

When I saw the word for this week over at the five minute Friday blog, I had no idea what I was going to write and I still don't, but here goes.

My mother-in-law died on Monday. We spent the week dealing with all of the emotions that come with a death. On Thursday, we celebrated her life. Friends and family members came through the line to tell us how sorry they were for our loss. There were some people that I didn't know that came through the line, but we had something in common. We both had suffered a loss. This loss was very unexpected and came sooner than we thought. Over the course of the holidays, my family and I will remember the times we had with her and laugh and cry at the memories. I also have something in common with my mother-in-law. We both lost our first child, hers through a stillbirth and mine through a miscarriage. Our children have never been on this earth. They have lived in Heaven. And now my mother-in-law has been reunited with her son and has met my child. And someday I will have that in common with her. I so look forward to that day that I will be there with them.

Five Minute Friday: Journey

It's time again for another five minute Friday post. This week's prompt is journey.

When I saw the prompt, I was thinking on what would be the best way to go with this word. At first I was thinking of my spiritual journey. This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. And I cannot wait to get to my final home. But, for now, I am on a journey on this earth and I need to continue on for Him. Then, my mind went to my parenting journey. I was given four precious children to nurture and prepare them for their adult life. That is a scary thought. Am I doing a good enough job that they will be able to make it when they go off to college? What about when they get their first job? Another journey I am going through right now is a homeschool journey. My children have been homeschooled their whole lives. More questions: Are they learning? Will they be able to make it in the real world? How can I best prepare them for the world? Will they get up in time to make it to their classes or job? But then, someone will come up to me, sometimes a stranger, sometimes a friend, and reassures me that I am doing my best in the parenting and homeschool journey. My spiritual journey? Well, I try my best and only God knows my heart. Soon, I hope to hear these words from Him- "Well done, they good and faithful servant"

Five Minute Friday ~ Eat

I have been starting to look forward to Friday's so I can find out the writing prompt for the day from the five minute friday blog. I didn't think I was going to join in very much, but this is my 3rd week.

When I saw the prompt for today, my mind automatically went to the Bible. I Corinthians 10:31 tells us "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. " (KJV) I grew up in church. I've heard this verse multiple times. So, what does it mean? It means we are to glorify God in everything that we do, even when we eat. Is water the only thing you have at this time? Glorify God. Do you only have $5 left in the food budget, but have a week left in the month? Glorify God. Or maybe you have so much food that it is going to spoil if not eaten soon. Glorify God by inviting someone over for dinner. Our children can learn about how we are to glorify God by doing something for others. My older boys have helped out by serving food to those at a soup kitchen, They were glorifying God by helping those in need to nourish their bodies with good food. Eat- we need to do it to live, but we also need to give God the glory while doing it. He is the One that has provided for us and we need to remember that and teach our children.

Five Minute Friday ~ Park

When I hear the word park, my mind automatically thinks about a playground park. We like to visit the park during the school year when there are less kids at the park. Sometimes, we are the only ones at the park. This past week, we went to the park and since schools have been out from the flood, there were a lot of kids at the park. I am not around (public) school age kids a lot and the way some of them acted surprised me. There were older kids picking on and intentionally hurting younger kids. But, there were also kids that were nice and friendly to other kids. I have tried to teach my children to be nice to others and to include everyone when playing.

Another park we like to visit are state parks. We like to hike during the fall when the temperatures are cooler and the mosquitoes have gone away. I also like to visit them in fall when the leaves have changed from green to beautiful colors.

Five Minute Friday ~ Mail

Well, I am back for another five minute Friday this week. When I was checking to see what the subject was, I was worried I wouldn't be able to come up with anything to say about the subject. But, when I saw the subject, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. So here goes...

Mail. It's something we expect to be delivered to our house everyday. We never think that there will be a time we won't get mail delivery. What's their saying? Through wind and rain and snow...I'm not sure. I am sure of one thing. When there is a river that runs through the middle of your town and your town is experiencing flooding, you will not get any mail delivery. In fact, I am expecting a package tomorrow. But, I checked the tracking and it made it to West Virginia and hasn't moved yet. You see, I live in Eastern NC where we are experiencing floods greater that Hurricane Floyd. It is one record you do not want to see broken, but it happened. The record broke last night and the river is still rising. The post office where are mail gets delivered is on the other side. There is no way for them to get us, on the south side of the river, our mail. We don't know when the road to town will open back up. We don't know how this will affect the businesses in the path of the flood. The only thing we do know is that we need to pray. Yes, this town has lived through a flood before and was more prepared this time, but that doesn't mean it is easier. Floods are not fun. But, there is One who will take care of His children and He will provide. My five minutes are up, but I just wanted to say that we do have a way to get to a different town (20 minutes away) for groceries and supplies.

Below is a picture of our way into town that was taken yesterday morning.

Update: 10/19/16: The roads have cleared and we received mail for the first time in a week.

Test ~ Five Minute Friday

Today, I think I am going to try something new. I've seen many posts about five minute Friday, but was never sure how to start. Yes, I know the directions are to just write for five minutes, but I kept thinking that I couldn't do it. Well, now I am going  to give it a try. The prompt for this week is test.

Go...

There are several things that come to mind when I think about the word test. There are tests in school. Sometimes God will put us through different tests and trials to draw us closer to him. But, the one test that has been on my mind the past few weeks is the driving test. My 14 year old started his drivers ed last month and has just completed his 30 hours of classroom instruction., He will now have to do 6 hours on the road instruction in order to pass drivers ed. When he has completed all of the instruction, he then (around his 15th birthday) will get to go to the DMV and (hopefully) pass a written and driving test in order to have a learner's permit. While I am still not ready for him to drive, I am praying that he passes the test on the first try. He has all the instruction and knowledge he needs to pass the test, so he should be able to ace it. Just as when we are going through tests of our own, God has given us all the instruction and knowledge (Bible) we need to get through the test.

And stop.

Well, I made it and it was fun. Be sure to visit Kate's blog- five minute friday to read more blog posts about tests.