I know it’s Sunday and this is a Five Minute Friday exercise. Sunday … Friday. Not quite the same.

But the point, as I’ve said many times, is it’s not the day, but the discipline. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Friday {the chosen date for most}, Saturday {my usual default}, Sunday or the middle of next week. The community responds to carve out five minutes of unscripted writing, post it, link up at Kate’s spot on Facebook at http://www.fiveminutefriday.com and encourage our writing neighbors as we visit and see their take on the common prompt.

Lately, I’ve also been sharing some of those experiences as chronicled in Five Minute Friday: A Collection of Stories Written in Five Minutes Flat. This week, I’ll share the word from Alia. I hope her words inspire you to join our writing club.

“I was a writer long before I was ever so bold as to claim that name for myself. I believed, as many do, that it was something you have to earn with book sales or a paycheck or a degree from a fancy university. But I had words coiled up inside me that would leak from my pen by lamplight that would one day be packed up in a nondescript cardboard box labeled journals and placed next to the camping equipment in the garage. I was a girl who saw a storied world, with metaphors and symbolism and words that felt like warm honey on my tongue. And when I ventured to the screen, I worried, as writers are prone to, that my words were not enough, that I might not be enough. I spent a lot of time hovering over backspace and I hit publish with shaky fingers. I feared the deafening silence and the gathering crowds with equal measure. I longed for a place to write the way I did when the journals were scribbled in and no one was going to call me out as a fraud, but I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I wanted a place where I could write too many words or too few and not worry if they were the right ones. And when I found FMF and they promised I could just come, that showing up was the battle and doing it scared was brave, I found my fingers would fly across the keys. I wrote things that made me cringe, and others that made me believe I was born for this. And I found a community that would cheer either way. I learned that writers write and the first step is showing up. I leaned to call myself a writer in those five minutes every Friday. I learned to write free.

There you go. The word this week is OVERCOME. The timer is set for five minutes, so let’s GO…

I’ve actually been blessed. There hasn’t been much for me to overcome in a long life. Sure, there were individual incidents and some health issues and plenty of just plain life, but never have I experienced the soul-searching, heart-rending, faith-jarring experiences to overcome.

That’s not to say I haven’t known people who have…

Overcome a less than supportive home and/or faith life.

Overcome abuse, be it physical or mental.

Overcome debilitating illnesses with grace and perseverancxe.

Overcome sudden losses.

Overcome addictions of all stripes.

Overcome a wayward spirit.

Overcome real crises of faith.

And yet they came out stronger because our God cares, out God reaches down, our God lifts up, our God loves.

Those are the heroes of our faith. It’s easy to go to church on Sunday when all is peaches and cream. It’s easy to smile when things are going right. It’s easy to share our faith when we’re in lockstep with the Lord. But throw a couple of homeless and/or hungry nights … STOP

… or other bigger than life calamities and you have a different story. Some reach out for the Life saver. Others don’t and turn their backs on God.

That’s the challenge for us. It’s up to us to toss that life saver. It’s not up to us only to preach the Good News, but to live the Good News so they see Jesus in us. We can’t walk in their shoes, but we can show them Someone who has. The rest is between God and them.

May that be our focus this week. Reach out. Show the love of God. Pray they make connection.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: The shortest answer is doing. — Lord Herbert