Am I That Dedicated?

I am trying to revive our blog. It's harder to keep the postings current than I thought it would be. Once we got into Myanmar (October) and were urged to be very careful about our communications (so as not to put our friends and fellow-workers at risk), the wind went out of my sails and I've had a hard time getting back into the flow of communicating via the blog.

It feels similar to a project I took on a few years back. I decided to write a personal Christmas letter to each of our kids, their spouses, and the grandkids each year. I was building a new family tradition...... Yippee!!! Well, I did alright for a few years. I looked forward with great excitment to writing those letters every Christmas. But then, sure enough, one year I got behind on the project and knew I couldn't get them all done in time. I forged ahead, however, even though I knew some would arrive late that year.

I was disappointed with myself. I had started out with such good intentions. But in the process of that next year I became discouraged concerning the whole idea. My zeal began to wane, putting my start date for the following Christmas even farther behind than before. I tried to encourage myself, saying that if I couldn't get them done for Christmas, it was okay, I would just turn them into New Year's letters. But something happens psychologically, at least for me, when I start slipping on the job, and especially if I get feeling too far behind. I end up telling myself that the letters didn't matter to anyone anyway, so why was I even trying to make it a yearly tradition. I convinced myself that it was okay to bag the idea.

That's kind of how I've felt about this whole blogging thing. I don't like letting people down, even myself. None of the kids have ever asked why the letters stopped, or quizzed me about what happened to their Christmas letter. No one is beating me up about it. Except me. If I could make a long-term committment out of some of the great ideas I've had, I think I'd be amazed at the fruit God would produce in my life.

I'm not sure I want to rekindle the blog if I can't be faithful to keeping it current and interesting. Like I said, it's much harder to keep up with than I thought it would be. Faithful blogging takes dedication and determination. Am I up for that, over the long-haul, I wonder?