Friday, May 26, 2017

Kate Motaung Five Minute Friday
‘Visit’

I'm glad I Visited

If I hadn't visited this site, I wouldn't have met you. I know we don't share the personal spaces, we don't sit over coffee, we don't see each other's faces and expressions and hear the voices and meet the spouses and kids and pets. But what I read I hold in my heart, I remember in prayer, I keep in my thoughts. It is these things that keep me coming back.

If I hadn't visited I’d have missed a challenge. I wouldn't have grown the same way. I'm thankful. Because I Visited I visit your other sites, I pray for you. I add you to my circle of friends and I will know you when we meet in heaven if we never meet on Earth.

It doesn't take much time or effort to visit. We know a little more of Christ when we visit His people, no matter in person or online. And isn't that one of main desires, to know Him more?

Christ visited us from heaven and took on our frail nature and identified with every weakness and sin. He was our greater visitor and still wants to abide in and with us every moment. He never tires of our company nor refuses an open heart. We never need be alone.

So I will be visiting you and not invading your space, taking your time, or interrupting your dinner. I'll let you know I was here, even if very briefly, cause I have always loved a good visit.

Friday, May 19, 2017

The word is “truth” with Kate Motaung. So much in this word but in five minutes, truthfully?

Truth

Not even sunshine can tell us all
Only uncreated light reveals it
An entity in itself, it is self-sustaining
Our best efforts leave empty holes of lies and questions
The more you think you know, the more there is to know
It may have sides, but never disagrees with itself
It needs no proof by words or actions
I cannot change it, destroy it or manipulate it
It will win in the end
It has to
It is truth
Jn 17:17 “… Thy word is truth”.
Jn 14:6 “…I am the way, the truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by me”.

Friday, May 12, 2017

Five minute Friday with Kate Motaung

//If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother

So many things I could say about having a mom and being a mom. The joys, the responsibilities, the frustrations, the grief, the fights, the fears, the headstrong will of holding tight and the tearful surrender of letting go. All of it because a child is a tender offshoot of a mother. There is a physical bond shared with no one else.

“Don't girls believe in birth control”? She looked at me with pity and disdain mixed with a touch of arrogance.

“Birth control makes you gain weight”, she said.

 I just stared in amazement.

“And pregnancy doesn't”?

“Well, yes, but you lose it afterwards”.

I couldn't contain myself. I tried. We were out in a public place having this conversation. I got up slowly from my chair. I slapped my hip and responded,  calmly, quietly, but deliberately.

“No, you carry the weight of that child as long as you live. Extra weight, I said, and it is heavier than anything you will ever carry physically”.

You don't know anything until you are right smack in it. I recall some conversations with my mother when growing up where we were of two extreme opinions. Sometimes I spend my energy and words saying “mom, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I didn't see. I didn't listen”. I'm saying it to a mom who isn't here any more, although I can hear everything she ever said.//

How much I would love to talk with her again. But if she were here, would I get frustrated? We were two different people. We shared some of the same values, but generation gaps will never completely close. I would hope I would have more patience and respect for those spaces and instead of trying to color them in with my adamant certainty, perhaps I could find nuances that could blend from both sides. Shading softens, creates peaceful tones and defines.

And this week as I hear people talk about what to get their mothers? Well, what I want is really what I already have, why I can celebrate this day at all, my children. No matter what the gaps, what the issues, they are my children. Is my mom still my mom? I know I carry some of her genes. Genetics is a wondrous science. You carry your children for as long as they live and then God determines the rest.

Children are life and to give or take away life is a grave responsibility.  If you are a mom, you are everything.

Friday, May 5, 2017

Writing with some awesome writers at Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday.
The word is "Should"

I Should, You Should, He does

Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Is 5:21

That which is right and sensible; that is a definition of should. How do we so often get sidetracked? John Lennon in his song “Beautiful Boy” sang this quote; “..Life is what happens to us when we are busy making other plans.”

How many should haves and should not haves do we wrestle with? Is there a false standard we are comparing ourselves against? In John 8, Jesus said to the accusers of the woman found in adultery “He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her”. None of them stuck around and He said to her “Woman, where are thy accusers, has no man condemned thee? She said, no man Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I condemned thee; go and sin no more.”

Was she guilty? Yes. Were they following the law? Yes. Am I guilty of any sin? Yes. I must first recognize that sin still exists. Whatever the sin was or is that brings us to ‘I should have or I should not have must bring us further to repentance before Jesus alone so He can advocate for us and take care of our accusers. I see He extended grace to them just as He did to her. Their own hearts condemned them, therefore they could not receive His forgiveness.

Oh, these are not the plans I made for myself. God knows so much more about me than I do. It is not what my life looks like to the condemning eye, but more the issues of the heart that are being turned over like fallow ground. Jer 9:11  “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.  King James version says,  “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end”. I like both versions. The end expressed here is the one that Christ has secured for us. Our expectation which is our hope.

Reminding myself God's purpose is not to harm me, so in turn I SHOULD not harm others.