Five Minute Friday: Unfelt Needs (#FMF)

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A writing friend encouraged me to join the #fiveminutefriday clan with writing for five minutes (yes, it’s self-explanatory) on their prompt. Here are my thoughts on what we need. Have five minutes and want to join in?

What do I think of when I hear the word needs? What pops into my head is felt needs. It’s an awful-sounding buzz phrase in publishing circles, in which products are created to meet someone’s felt needs. The needs we feel. The needs that will make us part with money.

Felt needs.

But what about the unfelt needs? What about the needs that aren’t sexy or those I might miss? The need to love and be loved. The need to love God and be loved by him. The need to make a difference, help people encounter him, serve others. To learn; to grow; to effect change. Those things aren’t necessarily quantifiable or something to be packaged into a saleable form.

What unfelt needs am I aware of today, and how can I see God’s hand in them? What unfelt needs can I call forth in others?

How can my writing meet hidden needs? Needs that might not be heralded or lauded? Can I be brave enough to write something that might be overlooked?

Unfelt needs. What do you think?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up. You can find today’s prompt here.

Comments

16 responses to “Five Minute Friday: Unfelt Needs (#FMF)”

November 3, 2017

Lesley

Welcome to FMF! Glad you’ve joined us and I enjoyed your post. It’s true that often our deepest needs are the unfelt ones. I like your question about how writing can help meet those unfelt needs in others- definitely something worth thinking about!

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1. November 3, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Thanks for your warm welcome! I can see how FMF could be addictive – and a lovely community.
  
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November 3, 2017

Carol

This was interesting–to consider the contrast between felt needs and unfelt needs. Part of our journey is to become more aware of God’s design in our life–and to encourage others to become aware. I’m glad you have linked up with FMF!

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1. November 3, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  It makes me think too of how we can have the power to say ‘no’ to projects and invitations; they might be meeting only what we are thinking are pressing needs, but if we say no we can then pursue the projects that reveal unfelt needs. Thanks for your welcome to FMF.
  
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November 3, 2017

Sharon Roberts

Amy, great thought provoking 5 minutes. Never underestimate the power of the written word. It can nourish the needs of the seeking, but that may not be shared with the author. Words are powerful,

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1. November 3, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Such a good reminder, Sharon, about the power of words. Thank you!
  
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November 3, 2017

Philippa Linton

I much prefer your list of unfelt needs to the felt needs! xxx

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1. November 3, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Ha – good point!!
  
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November 3, 2017

Martha G. Brady

i enjoyed your post amy:) it is interesting to contrast our felt needs with our unfelt or hidden needs. sometimes the latter ones are the ones we need to pay much more attention to in order to care for our long-term needs! nice to meet you amy!

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November 4, 2017

Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

Amy, it’s so nice to have you here with us at FMF. I think you’ll find this community a place of warmth and spiritual sunshine, with willing hearts and hands for those dark days..

I know, because I’m on a long goodbye with terminal cancer (pancreatic and now, it seems, non-Hodgkins lymphoma), Five Minute Friday has been my lifeline, and I credit these ladies (and a few blokes) with keeping me alive long past my sell-by date. (My doctor wants to write a paper on my unlikely longevity.)

Like Housman’s athlete dying young, when I felt that my heart could go no further, they carried me, shoulder-high.

And this met an unfelt need, that I had to be able to give grace by receiving grace. I had always been independent (I was a paramilitary contractor…or what was then called a mercenary), and felt that I could solve ANY problem.

But I couldn’t solve the problem of facing my own mortality until I found the sense, and perhaps courage, to step out in literary garb, and be truthful in my words.

I hope you’ll be here at FMF regularly, and for a long time.

#2 at FMF this week.

https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2017/11/your-dying-spouse-400-price-we-pay-fmf.html

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1. November 4, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Andrew, just wow. What grace you exhibit in your comment, and beauty in the words you choose. When Tanya said that the community was a lovely one, I wasn’t anticipating being welcomed quite so warmly. I’m off to read your blog, but am moved that you wrote as you did. Thank you.
  
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November 4, 2017

Tanya Marlow

Ohhh, I love this!

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November 5, 2017

Gayl

Amy, I love this! Welcome to the FMF community! I usually write for it but haven’t yet for this week. It was so nice to hear your voice yesterday. I could hear it in my mind as I read your post. ❤

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1. November 6, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Loved hearing your voice too, Gayl!
  
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November 8, 2017

Jennifer

Welcome to FMF – I think you are to be “hooked” and back every Friday:) I know I have really enjoyed it – and definitely consider myself one of the new ones on the block! I do believe that writing helps meets many of my own unfelt needs….and pray that, as I continue to write and develop my writing, it can do the same for someone else (or two)!

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1. November 8, 2017
  
  Amy Boucher Pye
  
  Thanks for the welcome! I think I may be hooked too, which is a good thing. And the timing is interesting, for I’ve just come to the end of two years of Friday blog series! I agree with you; may our writing meet many an unfelt need.
  
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