All Cracked Up-My 500th Post

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 (NIV)

I’ve been trying to think of something witty and astounding to say for my 500th post since I started blogging almost three years ago. Actually, it is probably about 575, but in 2007, I spent seven months posting chapters to a novel that, because I am a big chicken, has not yet been sent to a publisher. The one literary agent I talked to recommended I pull the chapters off the Internet as a publisher would not consider investing in something that people once got for free. So, down it went, and now, I am seven months late reaching my 500 posts mark. The problem is that after that many words, I might be running out of things to say! Today has been like that; introspective, second guessing, overanalyzing my actions and words. First thing, I eagerly opened up the kiln only to find a piece I worked so hard on cracked. Not just a little crack, but one that runs almost the entire length of the bowl. It was to have been a gift to give someone tomorrow and there is no time to remake it. I had to go back to the drawing board and try something simpler that could fuse in one night. It is cooling in the kiln now, but if it fails, which I am convinced that it will, after all I made one mistake, so I’m now sure I will make another, I may have to buy something to give. If only I had adjusted the temperature differently, placed it in the kiln differently, did anything differently so it wouldn’t have that crack. I mulled it over even as I went to several important meetings at work. As much as I tried to weigh my words carefully and think before I spoke, I either had diarrhea of the mouth or acted like I was a monk sworn to silence. I want so badly to look and sound intelligent and put together, but most times, I am just me, saying what I think before really thinking. The bottom line is I care too much about people’s opinions of me. What they think about what I do, what I say, what I write here. Instead, all that is really important is that I be the woman God asks me to be: loving, kind, a friend to the widow and orphan, a light to draw people to Him. But, sometime’s I get caught up in what the world wants me to be. Perfectly poised, articulate, smart, entertaining and powerful. So, as I post my 500th entry on my blog, I apologize if anything I’ve said has led you astray. What I meant to say was how much God loves you and that He wants to have a relationship with you. If for some reason, you missed hearing the message of grace and forgiveness and believe it’s all about perfection, please look again. Those are cracks in my life, but it’s not about me. It’s all about Him.