A misty morning on our North Plum prairie in Central Kansas.

Friday was Sandra’s “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” and I wanted to run away to Australia.

I won’t give you all the gory details because even if I changed the names to protect the innocent, most of the trouble was caused by that person I see every day in the mirror.
A large percentage of the remaining problems resulted from brokenness. No, I don’t mean that feeling when you realize you can’t make it on your own and would someone up there send some help already (although there may be a bushel of truth in that).

I mean stuff was broken. Broken oven, leaking shower head, a tear in a favorite shirt. And technology rebelled and refused to do my bidding. I was coming up against a deadline to get some important papers signed. How dare my laptop and printer conspire to revolt after I’d put off the task for so long!

Ah! There’s the rub! I procrastinate in many areas of my life, but I can be responsible in others. I can exercise self-control when it comes to paying bills, running several times a week or completing work assignments. On the flip side, I often delay cleaning chores, writing blog posts like this one or tackling difficult projects with indeterminate deadlines.

Why do some jobs get done with minimal will power and others seem to take monumental effort?

My easy-to-complete tasks all have a quick consequence if they don’t get done. I HATE paying late fees, my hyper-energetic dog pesters me to play (or shreds my socks) if she doesn’t get exercise and if I’m not meeting my work commitments, I’m forced into uncomfortable conversations with my boss (who is very understanding when real problems pop up).

The “to-dos” that are “not-dones” are more under my control. If I don’t clean the shower as often as I should, it really just impacts me and my hubby. I drag my feet in posting to my blog because I worry I don’t have anything interesting to say. I avoid big projects with unclear paths.

If I dig a little deeper, I know I procrastinate sometimes out of fear of failure.

Cleaning and organizing do not come easily to me. And I’m often in my daydream world where it’s easy to ignore the clutter and the dirt until it begins to spill out of the closets and attract wildlife. After weeks of neglect, I can spend 48 minutes scrubbing my shower and it still doesn’t look perfect. So why bother? Those are the times I need to remind myself that housework done imperfectly is better than housework not done at all. Spending 24 minutes or 12 minutes or 6 minutes is better than 0 minutes. Clean and de-clutter anyway.

As for the blog, almost every time I write a post, I feel a twinge of anxiety when I hit the button marked “Publish.” Creating makes us vulnerable. What if no one reads this? Or they think it’s a waste of time? What if I run out of things to say? Then I need to remind myself that connecting with others through writing is part of my primary purpose. Why did God give me this dream for my writing? So others will be encouraged. There will be times when my posts are dull. I must wrestle worry and pin it to the mat in the process. Write anyway.

Doubts can paralyze me or prompt me to pray and persevere.

When facing any complex project, I can take a small step forward instead of putting it off. Most of us veteran procrastinators know that just getting started is the hardest part. I say to myself, “progress, not perfection.”

That brings me back to my foul mood the other night, when technology kept me from completing an important part of a big project. I checked the printer, Googled the error message, tried moving the documents to a memory stick and putting that into the printer port. Nothing. I went to bed grumbling about all the broken stuff and all the undone tasks and tried to fall asleep haunted by regrets and recriminations.

When I got up the next morning, I knew I needed to sit down with my Bible, prayer journal and coffee to build positive momentum for my day. Seated in the big leather chair with my KTEH San Jose public television mug, I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a stack of paper in the printer tray. After I’d gone stomping up the stairs, the problem had inexplicably resolved itself. Yes, there were five more copies of one paper than I needed, but I rejoiced. I could get the signature I needed and move forward.

God was reminding me of his goodness in the midst of all the brokenness (yes, the spiritual kind). Life is hard more often than it is easy. I need to look to the Lord to help me overcome challenges, especially the ones I create for myself.

One of the passages I read Saturday morning was this one:

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.” – 2 Peter 1:3

Thank you, Lord, for reminding me that the presence of hardship does not mean the absence or your presence.