This week’s Five Minute Friday Prompt is “Middle.” Here goes:
At the start of a journey, you can envision your destination and plan your route. Things seem clear, and the distance from Point A to Point B looks pretty straightforward. Once you arrive, you can look back and see the ups and downs of the path you’ve followed. You can trace it from place to place and moment to moment.
But the middle.
The middle is where things get tricky. Your view of the destination gets obscured because instead of seeing the path, you are walking it.
Hills that looked small enough at the beginning loom much larger as you prepare to climb them.
Detours for which you couldn’t plan cause frustration and take time. Often, you wonder if you’ll ever arrive.
It’s frustrating to feel you’ll never finish or to fear you will fail to finish strong. Sometimes the longing for the goal keeps you from actually going toward it.
Because we’re excited at the start and we’re longing for the stop, and all the while, the meaning is often in the middle.
The every-day walking through this life is how we learn. It’s how we grow. With every step, we inch closer to the goal and become ever more prepared to reach it.
So we walk. We press on. “Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” You must “let perseverance finish its work so that you will be be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:3-4)
How do you get a better perspective when you feel stuck in the middle? How do you “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called” you “heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14)?
I’m taking part in Five Minute Friday again this week. I hope you’ll join us! It’s a great community of writers, full of encouragement and inspiration. Check it out!
Great insights 🙂 Things can seem so clear when we aren’t in the midst of them, hey?
Absolutely. I loved your poem today. Thank you for visiting!
Great post!
I figure that life is what happens when we’re in that middle, waiting to arrive, or looking back with nostalgia to a past we can’t touch.
So I try to just stay in the moment, even when it’s uncomfortable. Maybe especially then – it’s good training.
#2 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-dying-spouse-258-why-i-believe-fmf.html
You are so right. Thank you for visiting today.
This was so good! Never thought about the perspective when you are in the middle rather than at the beginning/end. Thank you for sharing your insight and for visiting today! 🙂
Thank you! I have to adjust my perspective from the middle of mothering almost every day! I’m so glad to have met you this week through FMF.
I really enjoyed your post. So true that the middle is often difficult but it is the place where we learn and grow- sometimes so gradually that it’s hard to see at the time. And it’s important to remember the enthusiasm we had at the start and why we set out in the first place, as well as to look ahead to our destination and press on towards it. Visiting from FMF.
I’m right with ya! Sometimes I always feel as if I’m floating in the middle, neither at the beginning or end, but with his perseverance we never run dry! Enjoyed your post and ..happy homeschooling!
Your perspective so resonated with me. Often, in my grand vision, I begin what I think will be a brief walk only to discover that I hadn’t considered the hidden view. This applies to so much of my life. “Your view of the destination gets obscured because instead of seeing the path, you are walking it.” Maybe it’s a blessing that I can’t see it all because I might become overwhelmed. Once I am in the middle, going forward is the best option. And I’m learning to slow down and learn from the middle-not just get from a to b.
I am so glad we connected this week at FMF. I love your perspective and how you developed middle. I understand that feeling of not seeing clearly because you are actually walking the path and living life. I also love how you brought in the verse from James and perseverance. Oh how we need perseverance to walk through the middle of uncertainty and not seeing where we are going. Blessings on your weekend.