I stayed up late last night to write. I planned on catching up on this blog site as well as on my self-titled site, where I “encourage and equip others to share their stories” and where I’m so far behind on my writing schedule that I’m often tempted to scratch the whole thing and start over.

That’s a common trait of true perfectionism: If it can’t be perfect, don’t do it. (With a true perfectionist, this only applies to the areas that matter most to him or her. In other words, not everything has to be perfect.)

But I’m not a perfect person, so if I wait for perfection, nothing will ever get done.

So I went into analytical mode this morning and began to think about what keeps me from writing not only what I want to write but also what I should write:

Sometimes I just plain talk too much, and that makes my posts (and e-mails to friends) long and storytellerish. Sometimes I say too little, leaving readers uncertain of my meaning or feeling that I’m not concerned enough. Sometimes I want to be funny, and I’m not. Sometimes I don’t mean to be funny, and I am. Sometimes I don’t care enough about what others think. Sometimes I fear what others are going to think. Sometimes I even worry that I don’t have the correct number of opposing “sometimes” pairings in my list!

But I think the important thing to do is to keep writing. Keep learning. Keeping making mistakes so that I can learn from them—even in areas unrelated to my writing.

Because when I do that, I see the power in the well-known Bible verse: “I can do all things through Him Who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:14, NIV). He tells us that He strengthens us because He knows that we need His strength! We can’t possibly do it on our own because…get ready for it…we’re not perfect.

But Christ is, making him the perfect Source of Strength!

So I’ll give my best, do my best, expect my best, and never settle for less than the best, moving forward in the strength that He provides.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some writing to do.

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Thank you for your many prayers, comments, and kind notes regarding my father’s health and his time in home hospice care.

You can read the latest updates regarding his health and other information related to this time by clicking here.