Five Minute Friday: Mercy

Here’s the deal. Five Minute Friday. You go find the little prompt at the wonderful Lisa-Jo’s blog, set the time and write for five minutes, and then just stop. Where you are, no edits, just publish raw words.

START

MERCY…

I like to think I’ve grown up in the South – but let’s be honest, the running joke of South Florida is that you have to go North to actually go South.

We are a southern place full of northerners who like to believe we drink sweet tea out of mason jars and say “y’all,” when in all reality we wear flip-flops year round and think palm trees live everywhere in the world.

When I began college at Samford, deep in the South of Birmingham, Alabama, I smiled big and squealed a little on the inside every time someone said, “Lord have mercy” or “bless her heart.”

It’s a Southern thing, y’all.

I like to pretend I’m part of it.

I can say “hey y’all” like nobody’s business and “bless her heart” rolls off the tongue as if I’ve heard it all my life.

But “Lord have mercy” has many meanings, and today I’m seeing it again for what the words truly are.

Lord, have mercy on us.

And He does, dear friends, He does.

When we pour out mercy to our next-door neighbors, whisper encouragement to the girl sitting next to us in class, or give so that women in Kenya can have a safe place to raise and love their babies, we are His mercy poured streaming out red for the world to see.

We are it, you and me, and even in this He is showing off His goodness and mercy – that He would use unknowns and stay-at-home moms and college students and big name bloggers and single mamas and mamas that don’t have mamas…and all would be equal in His eyes, because in His Kingdom we are all nothing and all amazing and He is all mercy and compassion, reaching out and giving it All so that we have a safe place to call home while raising up and loving one another.

There is great mercy and comfort in His wide-open arms.

We can breathe.

You don’t have to be enough today. You are neither too much nor not enough – He is All and that makes Him Enough. He’s got it covered. Exhale.

He stands with the key to our dreams and the balm for our hurts and He opens wide His arms offering forgiveness and rest as we journey on. We are on an Exodus through this crazy world, and we are called to simply love much and love well along the way.

Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

STOP

*****

Will you join us today? WIll you skip a Pumpkin Spice Latte or a run through the drive-through and instead give so that women across the world can have a safe vehicle to drive their precious babies around? Today (in)courage launched (in)Mercy – and as we sat around tables in late July dreaming of this day, I couldn’t wait to see you women step up and show mercy to ones we will likely never meet – on this side of Heaven.

And boy have you stepped up. Just over $3,000 raised since it began – this morning!!!

You can read so much more here, and I sure hope you do. I believe in this. Like, really believe in this.

Read more here, give here, and follow along here. Come on y’all…..Lord, have mercy.