Friday, February 16, 2018

Five Minutes of Why

I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday today and here's the drill-Kate posts a one word prompt, you set your timer and write for five minutes flat, no editing or over thinking.


I'll be honest here and say these prompts lend themselves to deep thought and I often struggle to articulate deep thought in just five minutes. I need more like five hundred to make my point, but still I try. I like the way this exercise stretches me and often forces me to examine my faith and put what I see there into words. I especially love seeing all the many directions in which writers run with a single word.

Obviously I haven't started my timer yet-ha!

Today's prompt-why

When my girls were little instead of asking why they used to ask "how becomes?" I don't know exactly when and how this came to be, but instead of asking why it was always "Mommy how becomes I can't go outside and play?" or "How becomes Poppie lives in heaven instead of here with us?" or "How becomes your hair is brown and mine is different?"

I think maybe the phrase came about because when they asked a question I answered, and my answer almost always began with the word because. How becomes was an extension of that.

I remember the innocence of my children, their curiosity, their sense of feeling safe in the world. Bad things happened but they were mostly shielded from them. It's a different world in 2018 with everything on display all day every day. Fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, violence of the human kind...no place sacred, no place safe.

How becomes the world is such a mess?

Well that's a tough one. A question for the ages really because a messy world is nothing new. When my children were small and they'd ask a tough question quite often my answer was simply this-'Because Mommy says so'. Small children are most of the time more than okay with that answer. In fact it was the answer they were looking for. They don't need details, they just need to know someone bigger is in charge.

We're all small children when evil looms large in our newsfeeds and our school buildings, our churches and movie theatres and on and on it goes.

Someone bigger is in charge.

Every time something tragic occurs I'm reminded this earth is not my home. That I'm a traveler in an imperfect world, and that God has something infinitely better planned. That He knows the end from the beginning and we only see in part.

For those who don't acknowledge the existence of God that all sounds trite and convenient, like you're taking the easy way out. Except it's not easy. It's not easy to look at a world gone mad and say something better is coming.

So how becomes I believe it?

Because God has promised that very thing and He has never ever failed to keep His word.

9 comments:

  1. Love this, Joyce! You are so right we "just need to know someone bigger is in charge."

    I try to keep my focus on my journey Home. So many distractions try to keep from making my destination, but I am determined. I believe God will never fail to keep His word.

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  2. I love your "how becomes"! My middle child was always the "why?" child and I always tried to give him an answer but then it would sometimes become a battle of wills - he would question my answers and it would go on and on with both of us wanting to have the last word lol

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  3. Hi Joyce! Loved reading your thoughts on this. Why, is asked so easily but "how becomes" I have never heard before. But it somehow makes sense. I think it's so cute. Deep thoughts you had on that little question. But oh so true, your answer.

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  4. Yes...and AMEN! That is absolutely it in a nut shell. Powerful five minutes, Joyce.

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  5. That's a sweet story about your girls. Love your thoughts here!!

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  6. Well-written (as always). It is a huge comfort to know the Lord is in charge. With that in mind, we don't need to have all the answers.

    Thanks for writing this.

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  7. The older I get and the closer I get to "going home", the more wonderful the reality that I'm just passing through becomes. Thank you for this powerful Five Minutes.

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  8. This is just so beautifully written, Joyce, and so completely and utterly true. I loved reading about your girls' phrase of "How becomes?". It sounds so much like something my own girls would have come up with. But even more I loved reading your thoughts on why. I have a cross stitch that I made a long time ago; it was a free design by D. Morgan and is really not my favorite because I didn't do the best job finishing it. But I love its sentiment. It reads: "The way is long, the air is cold; but my heart is warm -- because, in a few moments, I'll be home." It's a wintry scene. When I read it I always think of home as having a capital H. In a few moments ... believers will be Home. Thank you for sharing.

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