Five Minute Friday = prompt word, five minutes, just write. No over thinking, no over complicating.

A whole week late but I don’t think anyone’s counting and it’s quite in keeping with the prompt word I think.

This weeks prompt word: LACK

Oh don’t get me started on that one – you’ll never shut me up.

I could wax long and loud and lyrical about what I think I haven’t got and what I haven’t done and what I don’t have in terms of smarts and looks and get up and go and how I nearly always feel about 20 steps behind everyone else in the whole wide world.

But where would that get me in the end. What would that achieve except to bring us right back to where we are right now.

And friend I say that’s as good a place as any to start.

Lack, loss, limitations – we all feel the sting, the drag on our souls, , the feeling of one hand tied behind our backs – none of us are immune, not by a very long shot – BUT you know as well as I those things need not define us and they need not stop us.

They might require a bit more of us in the way of creativity and ingenuity and maybe they require a lot more of us in the way of plain old gumption. But lack can work the same way as necessity and mother all types of invention. Lack gives us a good old shove and says “c’mon let’s see what your made of”

I say lets start where we are with what we DO have – and worry less about what we don’t have.

Start with the silly idea that might just be brilliant, the ordinary skill set, the measly bank balance, the solitary half hour, the lacklustre room, the limited support, the shaky knees, – start with what you have, despite what you don’t.

And remember plenty is no guarantee of blue skies or an easy road or quick success anyway.

I LOVE the story that Moses’ life tells. I’m sure it’s there to encourage us ones not sure if we’ve got the stuff, who tremble in our boots wondering if we dare.

Moses was a man who fought God up hill and down dale about what he lacked and what he couldn’t do and who he wasn’t (as if God calls people based on what they think they can do).

God found him hidden away in a wilderness of his own making, washed up, long in the tooth, no doubt thinking his chance to do anything worth anything had long since passed him by.

When God said to Moses “your the one who’ll lead the Israelite people out of Egypt”, Moses (after he almost dropped dead) replied “impossible”. All that he thought he lacked – breeding, influence, courage, leadership skills, the ability to speak clearly – stared him square in the eye.

Yes God counts us in even while we are busy counting ourselves out.

Moses eventually said one tentative shaky yes after another, then another and another and led a nation of people to freedom.

There’s what can be done when you think you’ve nothing and God whispers purpose into your soul.

When you dare to say yes, to show up and try – right where you are with what you’ve got.

Thanks for reading friend and Happy Easter

Xx