It’s Five Minute Friday time. You know what that means … letting the neurons out of their cages to roam free, spark the heart, mind and soul and trigger the finger movements for a five minute post on a specific prompt word. And when the exercise is over, we’ll head to Kate’s place fiveminutefriday.com/ to link up with my amazing fellow writers and share and swap words of encouragement.

You know how much I appreciate this treasured time and I’ve asked you to join in [your really, really should]. But I thought I would add some additional incentive from my fellow writers. Taken from snippets in Five Minute Friday: A Collection of Stories Written in Five Minutes Flat, perhaps their words about what Five Minute Friday has meant to them will inspire you to give it a chance.

“I had opened a blog and never written in it when I found Five Minute Friday in 2013. I love writing, but didn’t know thing one about blogging. FMF gave me the impetus to start writing in my blog. Since then, I’ve expanded, grown, refined. It has been such a journey! I am so grateful for the way FMF drew out my spontaneous side and gave me permission to write without my inner critic editing every dot and tittle to a perfection. I met some of my greatest blogging friends through FMF. We are still connected to this day through social media. One friend helped me launch my new site. Another included me in a blogging group on FB that helped ‘raise’ me through my adolescence as a blogged (which I’m probably still in!). When I look back at all the tributaries in my online writing career, FMF was the source of many of them. Since blogging, I wrote some parenting posts which got the attention of another author who invited me to co-author a book two years ago. That invitation was birthed from my blog which was given wings through FMF. Such goodness!” — Patti

Okay. Back to the task at hand.  The prompt is CONFIDENT and the timer has been set. So, it’s time  to GO…

m generally a pretty confident guy. I have good self-esteem {I think}. I have balance in my life. I play nice in the sandbox.

But I still have anxieties. I test the limits of faith almost every day … Will there be enough in the checking account? … Will there be food on the table? … Will there be a roof over my head? … Am I doing God’s will? … Have I taken on too much? … Have I slacked off too often? …

And the answer to almost every one of them is yes. I often look at a situation and honestly don’t know how it is going to flesh out … until I look back and see the work of the Lord. He generates my confidence. On my own, I would probably melt into a puddle.

While I wonder and sometimes fret, I do know, … STOP

… with confidence, where I will end up when the ticker sop ticking.

There are some who question that confident stance. How can you be sure, they ask. And the truth is I just know … and if I’m wrong, well this ride was a little more pleasant.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: The fact we can’t kiss our elbow is enough to make us realize some things in life are very close to us, but still beyond our reach.