Look Before You Leap, It's the Friday Five!

will smama and Songbird say: Hello from your Fifth Friday Five team, It's Leap Day!! Whether you're one of the special few who have a birthday only once every four years, or simply confused by the extra day on the calendar, everyone is welcome to join in and play our Leap Year Friday Five.Tell us about a time you:

1. Leapt before looked...I think I used to do quite a lot of that. I hated to make decisions because I didn't trust that I could make good ones, so I would put things off till the last possible minute, then just sort of close my eyes and plunge. Sometimes the results were good. Sometimes not so much. I ended up in my doctoral program this way....just dilly dallied around for about a year trying to figure out a direction and two weeks before the application deadline, got the materials and ran around like a madwoman getting everything together and amazingly, got accepted, and the rest, as they say, is history! I think if I had really thought about it I would have convinced myself I couldn't do it, wasn't worthy, and all those other old bad stories I told myself then, and that in retrosepct, this really was a graceful, death-defying leap

2. Leapt to a conclusion...This is another one of those that I used to do a lot, and hopefully am doing less of as I attempt to live more mindfully. Although full-disclosure compels me to admit, some days are better than others! The critical voices in my head are still too happy to go a-leaping, especially when I am tired or stressed or vulnerable, and tell me in loud and certain tones that the casual comment or the well-meant remark is intended as a very negative personal slam, or that someone is Really Trying To Tell Me Something. I'm learning that when I have taken that leap and landed hard it's not irrevocable. I can get up out of the bramble bush and go back over and check out what really happened before I went off the edge.

3. Took a Leap of Faith...October 2, 2002. Got in that moving van and drove southwest into the life that God was calling me into. Had no idea what was waiting. Still don't. Mostly ok with that.

4. Took a literal Leap I am not much of a leaper, as I am afaid of heights in a big way. I am willing to get up on those ropes come spring though, and so perhaps leaping is coming my way as I am not quite sure exactly what all this will entail. I don't know that I want to know....I'll just go along and trust the process and my guides and do what I am told. That seems to be working pretty well in some parts of my life. As the picture says....."there will be a net." (Of some sort....I hope!)

5. And finally, what might you be faced with leaping in the coming year? That is a hard one. I am facing some things that may well result in some big leaps of faith, life, and trust in God, myself and others. It could be a very interesting year. I am very glad for the net.