Not Too Late

“It gets late too early out there.” -- Yogi Berra

It's super-duper casual day at my 'sort of new' job today. Forget casually dressy pants, a nice shirt, and a pair of snazzy shoes. This morning I'm wearing my gray cotton capris, a yellow T-shirt with a coffee cup on the front with 'Start me up' underneath it and my AE flip-flops. Clinton and Stacy from TLC's What Not to Wear would be horrified, to say the least. Though they could be secretly jealous of the comfort in which I am working. Maybe . . .

But in my defense:

1. I am working at home.
2. I was running a little bit late (even home offices need business hours).
3. Did I mention I'm working at home?

My morning job is only 'sort of new' as it involves something I've been doing for quite some time now: Writing. And as I have been reminded of again, a writer can't wait for inspiration to hit before sitting down to put words on the page. And as July fast approaches and I look at the goals I set out at the beginning of year, I'm realizing I've got some work to do. Plus my old routines are producing squat, so it's time to get on a new track.

On that note, something I'm *finally* starting to realize (in a 'put-it-into-practice' way) is beating myself into a pulp over my past mistakes is not going to produce the sort of changes I want to see. Not in my writing or in my life overall. But again, as with many things, one needs to maintain a proper balance. I'm not to be all 'loosey-goosey' with my sins and mistakes, traipsing off into the sunset with nary a morsel of remorse as I look forward to another day. David wrote in Psalm 51:17 “. . . a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” In other words, I need to be repentant, to feel remorse and the need for forgiveness when I do wrong.

And there is another potential stumbling block I need to be careful of as well: The desire to fix my mistakes myself (and the time I waste when I actually try to do such a thing).

As Jon Acuff wrote on his blog – Stuff Christians Like – under the entry titled Two “F” Words:

I think satan wants us to thing our past is fixable. God wants us to know our past is forgivable.

There's a world of difference between those two words fixable and forgivable. One is about human effort and sweat and heartache and staying in the mud. One is about grace and mercy and white snow and sacrifice we can't imagine.

So fixed or forgiven? Mud or white snow?

Which one will you choose?

I know which way I want (and need) to go. And because God is full of grace and mercy, it's not too late to start even with the calendar being halfway through 2010. Not for you and not for me.