Here we go again–Five Minute Friday challenge, on a Saturday night. And this time, B, my husband, has even joined in on the fun. After my post is his! Yay for doing things together! Always warms my heart. Even more so when we play Jeopardy together. Yes, we perhaps are the biggest nerds you know. No, I’m not afraid to admit it.
What we did tonight-the writing-is a weekly writing “game” from my bloggy friend Lisa-Jo Baker, who blogs (and writes heart-breakingly, beautiful words and stories) at http://lisajobaker.com/
So, here’s the challenge, should you accept it: you write for 5 minutes with freedom like you have no fear or shame. And then you have to be brave (or at least pretend to be) and link up to her blog. Encouraging the writer who links up before you is part of the deal, too. This last rule is crucial, as we all need to encourage others. Why encourage another writer? Because at one point or another in our lives, we all need encouraging too.
Each week is a new word, a new thought starter, and you have 5 minutes to write….and are you ready? go-
Broken
This week has left me broken. Broken in a way that I’ve been a million times before, that isn’t anything new, or note-worthy for that matter, but broken in a way that’s mean shattered, a little bit beyond just simple disrepair.
And it’s not terrible, really, to be broken. How else, then, will you know how to be filled? How else can you reach for wholeness with an irresistable longing? Only if you’ve experienced the broken openness do you know how coming apart can very much so mean the joy of putting back together. And all through life, we do this again and again, the learning, the breaking, the repairing. It, to some degree, is how we learn to move through this world beyond just surviving.
And sitting with the brokenness—late on a Friday, a Good Friday, we call it, though it is A So Terribly Bad Friday, sitting with that knowledge and truth on a Friday night that is awful, combined with the sting of how my brokenness led him there, and with the added dream-like state of my bad mood with not enough sleep from the night before, only hurt me more. And I had to sit with it, uncomfortable and quiet, and that really is the least of all I could do, for the one who has the power and the grace, daily, to make me whole.
Broken
He pushes his way through the burnt ashes and charred wood looking and looking. Although his hands ached from searching the wails behind him kept his drive going. Where could it be? Had someone stolen it when the volunteers came through searching for survivors? … Too many questions.
He finally saw a small glint that was not black, brown and grey. The glint from the sun danced on the metal and wood. How could it have survived? He glanced back again to see if his son was still crying and then kept using what strength was left to remove the trunk from the disaster that was their home. When he had the area cleared out, the trunk had been roughed up and damaged, probably beyond repair. Like his home. Like his marriage. Like his neighborhood. Yet, the key still fit in the lock his son had put on their to keep his treasures safe. He pulled out the black, stuffed panda/grizzly/whatever bear. His smile as he turned around to his son while extending this piece of their previous safe haven to him was all he had left. Yet it appeared enough to the four year old in giveaway clothes. It brought them both home again.
Liz Rasley 
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