Celebrate 50!

The other day as I entered a new blog post, feelings of joy and accomplishment washed over me. The reason for this happines was that I had reached the "50 mark," meaning I had written over 50 blog posts! Never in my life did I ever think I'd write a blog, much less write 50 posts!

However, when I checked the date of when my blog began, my happiness was short lived. January of 2010. I did the math and realized that I had written about one blog post a week. My heart sank. My goal was to write two posts a week. The elation I felt a few minutes ago quickly turned to disappointment and frustration.

Degrading thoughts swam in my head. "I should have met my goal. Why didn't I try harder? What a failure!"

In the midst of my emotional bruising session, the Lord brought a devotion I'd written for a shower to my mind. Ironically, it was about grace! At the shower I had shared that none of us are perfect as wives, moms or friends, and that we need to give ourselves grace. I guess when I wrote that for a baby shower, I wasn't expecting it to also ring true in my life.

Instead of beating myself up, I should have been happy about the 50 posts I was able to write. That's 50 times God has helped me relate Biblical truth to daily life. And, it's a lot of seeking His Word in the process, which has been an awesome step for me.

The fact that I am even writing a blog is through the grace of God. I can honestly say that He has inspired each one. I may not have reached my goal this year, but I'm not giving up. With God's power and His grace I will keep on writing, even if it's only once a week, because God's power is made perfect in my weakness. He can still use one blog a week for His glory!

I don't know what God's timing is for me with my writing. It seems like it's going more slowly than I want, but since God set the example of giving me grace, I'm going to give myself grace, too. I'm going to celebrate 50!

Scripture: 2 Cor. 12:7-10; 2 Peter 3:18

Prayer: Lord, everything good in our lives is by Your grace. May we follow the example You set with grace - giving free and unmerited favor to a sinful humanity - and give grace to others. We want to give grace to ourselves, our family, our neighbors (everyone else!). Lord, we want to remember to give You thanks for everything good in our lives!