Grit!

Today I'm linking up with The Gyspy Mama for Five-Minute Friday.  Today's prompt:  Grit.  We have five minutes of free writing to that prompt.  Get ready!  Get set!  Go!

I see or hear the word grit, and I think of several things:  grits we ate growing up in the South, the grit and grime of the schoolyard or our own backyard, the acronym GRIT for "Girl Raised in the South" (a personal favorite!), and lastly and most painfully the way my mom would grit her teeth in anger.  Truly I feared that grit in her at those times.  But there was more to that gritting of her teeth than I realized at the time.

As a single mom, she'd had to show grit as she worked during WWII as Rosie the Riveter, like many other women, because all the boys were overseas.  She raised that child alone for almost 14 years having left behind an abusive husband and father.  It was tough, she was tough, she had grit!

Years later she married my dad, who became ill two years into the marriage and was unhealthy for the remainder of his life, until age 73 leaving my mom a widow at 62, four years younger than I am now.  Her grit surfaced again as she helped me, by now also a single mom with a toddler, to see my way through tough days, but also digging into that grit and paying off a mortgage working as a school cafeteria worker.  That's hard work and takes a lot of grit!

Yes, I'm a GRITS -- girl raised in the south -- by a mom who used her grit in many ways, but I'll tell you truthfully it wasn't all about grit.  She relied on God to see her through tough times.  I can still hear her saying, "God never gives you more than you can bear!"

So, let's get our grit on and handle the tough stuff with God standing beside us!

Photo credit:  Historical Stock Photos
(Graphics added after the five minutes!)