A past assignment at last examined: consider what you want to accomplish with your blog. Write down three concrete goals you want to achieve. Live. And. Blog. (not blog to live.)
Having goals helps you focus your blogging energy. If the thing you’re doing isn’t helping you achieve your goals, ditch it. Done & ditched!
Some questions to mull over to help you uncover/refine what’s most important to you about your blog:
Why do you blog? My head’s all full of fluff. To connect with others? Sort-of, (but only kind-of.) If others are to connect with me they will need to be those who have not only smiles on their faces but smiles embedded in their souls, (or are striving for this.) To work through and clarify your own thoughts? Mostly.
If your blog exceeded your wildest dreams, what would that look like? It would be a creative outlet of love. How many followers would you have? Only thing that matters would be: a follower of my site must be one who is intrigued by silly, sappy, genuine love (which can be messy sometimes) & those who care to nurture God’s love in their lives and the lives of others. And MUST be comfortable with receiving hugs n’ blessings! (Yes, this site is touchy & feely.) What sort of community would participate? Builders of character. No conspirators who want to build themSELVES up while tearing others down. What discussions would take place? Godly giggles exhaled through angel breaths. How often would you post? my prayer is to build a routine. God is working on that for me...please be patient with His timing.
You can articulate your goals however you’re most comfortable, my main goal is: unpacking my brain fluff; but we recommend making them simple, concrete, and time-based to create laser-like focus, like: okay….unpacking my fluff ROUTINELY so i don’t become over-stuffed!
How would that look?
Attempt to publish three times each week with: One random fluff-thought, 2 regular features.
Spend one hour each week visiting my followers’ blogs, reading their posts, and commenting on their work.
Create an editorial calendar for the next three months by March 23rd.
Publish posts from respected guests once a month.
(Enlist prayer warriors to pray for me!)
Assignment completed. (no credit received. but my character is redeemed & for that I give mySELF some bonus points!)
I haven’t had much time to be tippity-tap typing at my cyber-say-I spot as of late. I knew I missed it…but evidently not as much as my adult children! Turns out they’re actually following-me. Literally & physically taking pauses in their day to check and see if I’ve blogged a little ditty.
“Hmmmm,” says my motherly thoughts. “When did that happen?” When did they stop running away from me and u-turn to try to find me instead.
#3 wants to know if, “I’m feeling alright.”
#2 shares she misses my blog, “voice.”
And #1 indignantly shouts, “I never know what you’re doing!” (In his very best Will Farrel voice, I might add.)
I shyly smile as thumpty-thump-thump goes my heart!
“Ma! The Meatloaf!”
Geez, “What have I been doing??” I then ask myself. (Not making meatloaf that’s for sure!) I guess pretty much the same thing as always…
Spending my days with the best dog in the Universe while praying. Visiting our Methuselah Ministry friends, the hospital and our church & praying. The cooking…with prayer, the cleaning…plus more prayer, the laundry routine, (lots of prayer there.) I’m still moving things ‘here & there’ in our new home, accompanied by prayer. And oh yes, it’s the lenten season right now so….I pray some more. It seems I spend most of my days…in prayer.
And that’s when I really smile as I make a head-heart connection. For in that moment I’m in the u-turn looking back over where I have been.
Many mooing moons ago I was exposed to a book, (which now has become worn and dog-earred over these past 25+ years.)
The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of documented conversations and letters written by a seventeenth-century French monk, Brother Lawerence.
“In Thy Presence is fulness of joy!”
The book reveals how Brother Lawrence learned to practice the Presence of Godat all times. And through the heart of this humble man we too learn. “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen…I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament,” he writes. Throughout this beautiful collection he develops one great theme, best expressed by the psalmist, In Thy Presence is fulness of joy.
As a young bride & mother I ached to find a purpose in what I did each day. Not working outside the home I felt a societal pressure to explain the importance of my work, work which my husband supported and valued as much as I. I jokingly claimed my chosen career as being: a Domestic Engineer. This read well on all necessary paper-work and the perplexed looks, usually involving a fuRRowed eyebrow, always made me giggle internally as people would silently try to determine, “Is there really an engineering degree for that?!” Through Brother Lawrence’s Spiritual Maxims I was able to define the very purpose for my great work of becoming a Domestic Engineer.
My husband always cautions others (especially our children,) “Don’t talk to your mother while she’s doing that; she has a hard time concentrating.” Or I will often hear him patiently wait near me for what he thinks is just the right timeto ask me something because, as he affectionately likes to point out in these situations, “I know you have a hard time doing two things at once.”
A total surrender of ourselves, in every action we make, to Him.
And now it Dawns on me why! Over the course of practicing what it has meant to me to be a Domestic Engineer I have stopped doing anything that does not involve prayer with it! Giggles! They don’t know I have a constant prayer which is running through my head in every action I make!
A random selection of: Hail Mary, Glory Be, Our Father, a Hail Holy Queen. DIvine Mercy. Memorae. St. Michael’s prayer.
Brother Lawerence taught me “not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” That “we should gain a habit, which will naturally produce its acts in us, without our care, and to our exceeding great delight.” “…by the practice of which we become united to the will of God. That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshipers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.”
A kitchen monk whose days were filled with buckets of water for the washing of floors and a sink full of dishes he was found worshipping as much in his kitchen as in his cathedral. His greatest desire was to walk, with every thing he did throughout the day, as if he were walking in His presence. He showed us how, at any moment and in any circumstance, the soul that seeks God may find Him, and so too practice the Presence of God.
“Lord of all pots and pans and things…
Make me a saint by getting meals
And washing up the plates!”
-Brother Lawrence
Ting-tingly, as I come out of my u-turn, I am grateful for this habit I’ve developed of not being able to concentrate…or juggle more than one thing at a time…because I know what prevents it is the mantra of my mental prayer. A praying that is so beautifully automatic I don’t even recognize is playing most times.
Perfectly? No.
But they’re there. A constant ticker-tape-tick of prayers.
Which leads me to decide…it’s time to make a meatloaf.
hugsnblessings 