I used to have this very bad habit in my daily devotions. I would miss one day, and then feel like I needed to make up for it by doing both days of reading. The thing was, one day missing wasn't such a big deal, but sometimes it ended up being three or four days of Scripture readings, so then it was significantly more time consuming. If days were missed, it was likely because my schedule got busy (yes, ministers have the same bad habits that you have), so I was already busy and then having to play catch up, which led to skipping it more until I was, say, a month behind or something ridiculous and I'd pretty much give up entirely for awhile. It's not like I wasn't still reading Scripture or praying or doing things that enriched my spiritual life, but my daily devotional--my disciplined activity--would fall by the wayside because it was difficult to catch up.

Finally it struck me... this is crazy! Catching up is a compulsion, not a healthy understanding of how deepen my spiritual life or to be in relationship with God. And it transformed my ability to keep up with a regular, daily devotion.

Enter blog writing. Christmas gets busy, a few weeks fly by with no blog entry. And then I think, "I'll have to have a really good blog for the new year, for this new start," and no earth-shattering thought comes to write about (not that any of these are in any way earth-shattering anyhow) or I can't figure out a way to make up for a few weeks of no entries, and pretty soon it looms in a way that I can't even write anything for a long time.

All that is to say, I may be the only one reading these anyhow, and if I--perfectionist Jess--am willing to extend grace to myself and jump back into the weekly writings, please (to any other readers) be willing to extend that grace as well--to me and to yourselves in whatever compulsions enslave you as you start off a new year!

Grace and peace,
Jess