Five Minute Friday - Mess

Five Minute Friday is a special time set aside each week where, as our hostess and inspiration, Lisa-Jo Baker, puts it, "We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt...no extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation. Unscripted. Unedited. Real." 

Today's prompt is mess. So...here...we...

Go!

It's just after midnight and my BFF just left. She had been here several hours and, in that time, we discussed a myriad of subjects...plans for her daughter's upcoming graduation from nursing school and the party to follow, our roles as Christian wives, Scripture verses to speak over our marriages, our hopes and dreams for the future, our fears, our failures, our pasts, and about what a mess we both are. (I giggled when I saw Lisa Jo's prompt.) 

My BFF and I met in 2004 and, as we were getting to know one another, we found it totally bizarre that, for whatever reason, she and I have lived many of the same experiences...trod the same path...made the same wrong choices that resulted in identical outcomes that weren't wrong at all, but precious and dear to our hearts...except we did all these things ten years apart and in two totally different places.  We discovered that, in many ways, we both still live messed up lives as a result of the choices that we had made in the past.

But what we're also finding is this..despite all our fallings and flailings and failings...despite all our messed up messiness...and because of it...Jesus is there. He is able to take these messes that we've created and do something with them. And He can do it for you, too. 

Jesus knows how to pick up all those broken pieces of our messy, messed up lives and put them back together again. Jesus is the glue that cements broken hearts and broken lives and broken relationships together...making them stronger than they ever would have been otherwise, and He can turn our messes into something beautiful...and He has...and He does.

My BFF and I? Yes, we're messes. But we're great, big, BEAUTIFUL messes that have hearts for the Lord, and we trust Him to do what we can't. And that is to create beauty out of ugly...create calm in the midst of chaos...and to weave all those messy stands that we call "life" into a tapestry fit for the King. 

As I typed this I was reminded of this poem from long ago...

THE MASTER WEAVER'S PLAN

My life is but a weaving
Between the Lord and me;
I may not choose the colors–
He knows what they should be.

For He can view the pattern
Upon the upper side
While I can see it only
On this, the under side.

Sometimes He weaves in sorrow,
Which seems so strange to me;
But I will trust His judgment
And work on faithfully.

‘Tis He who fills the shuttle,
And He knows what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest,
And leave to Him the rest.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needed
In the Weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

~ Benjamin Malachi Franklin

Stop!

Until Next Time...

~Rebecca