New Year Check-In

Well, wouldn't you have it that when Oprah finally has a full week of new shows my life is CRAZY town. We're moving Saturday, I'm 33 1/2 weeks pregnant (That's nearly 8 1/2 months), my husband still works 90 hours a week, and so with the help of a few friends I'm packing all week. Blurg!

Also, I was a tad frustrated to realize over Christmas that I thought there was just a long break... instead, there would be one new show, or maybe two, slipped in with a bunch of reruns. I was thinking there wasn't any new work and was surprised to see a bunch of new episodes had stacked up! Double blurg!

Those two sets of circumstances got me really thinking about how best to steward this blog. I originally assumed I'd always do every episode every day. Then things would come up to make me realize that wasn't always wise for my primary callings to Jesus, my husband, my son (he's not born yet but I still need to serve and honor him in how I balance work and rest, particularly since my body is helping his to grow!), my ministry commitments, and my job, let alone my other relationships. As long-time readers may know, it KILLED me to skip an episode or two (and they are all still on my TiVo, "just in case." Ha!) but then I learned that it really was wiser to do so.

I'm not 100% sure how this will work, as it requires utmost faith and reliance on Jesus, which is scary because it feels like there is a lot more room to fail, but what I'm considering right now is praying about which episodes to cover and which to pass over each week, with an assumption that I'd do 2-3 a week. In part, there are some episodes that simply have a lot more value than others. All have value, but an episode like today's, looking at race in America throughout Oprah's show, will likely have a lot more solid Gospel content to glean than, say, 3 days in a row of Oprah and 300 others traipsing through Australia. Also, I found that some issues were becoming very redundant--there may be new insights into, say, sexual abuse or homosexuality, but those issues were hit so heavy that I found myself constantly referring back to old posts and it seemed to not be the best use of my time to take 90 minutes to recap an episode that basically in the GFR said, "Go read this GFR on another post."

Now, I said this feels like there is more room to fail. I am a bit intimidated! Am I wussing out? Am I forsaking a commitment and not letting my "yes" be "yes?" Additionally, it felt safer, more God-honoring somehow, to be determined to cover. Every. Single. One. of the. 130. Episodes. this season. But I emphasized feel with italics because the truth is that anything not done out of utter dependence upon Christ for His wisdom is sinful and that would be failure to use this blog for His glory. I am in a place where making this blog top priority instead of wisely gleaning the most useful balance of which episodes to cover would be sinful. It might make my wicked heart feel better to crank out 10-15 hours a week working on this blog, so I can think I'm doing the right thing, but I wouldn't be. What Jesus is saying to me is to seek Him, rest in Him, to keep this blog in an open hand and to always only want His glory and nothing else.

So! As I said, the new method will be to pick a couple to a few episodes a week and cover them, hopefully still within 24 hours or so, though some weeks (like this one!) I'll need quite a bit more grace than others. I'll need some flexibility as I try this out, but I think it's best both for me to steward this blog but also for your time, too!

Thank you for reading this and I hope to have today's episode up by tomorrow evening!