One of my New Year’s resolutions was to blog twice a month, but it looks like once a month is a little more realistic right now. Even writing once a month is challenging, and I’m a day late making it for April… but better late than never, right?! Sometimes you just gotta make time and stop making excuses. (Talking to myself here!)

Lately, it’s been a real struggle for me to get to church. Church with a one year old is exhausting. She just wants to run around, and beings I don’t let her, she throws a fit right in the middle of things. Talk about embarrassing! All the turned faces are usually smiling, and I know it’s a natural reaction to look towards the noise, but most times it makes me want to run and hide.

On top of chasing a one year old and dealing with the screams during service, the church I go to moved. What once was a 10 minute ride down the highway is now a 40 minute back road commute. I was barely making it on time with it being so close, so getting there on time was another challenge.

I didn’t make it for the first couple weeks. Baby girl was sick one week and the next week she had been up most of the night and didn’t wake up until it was past time to leave. It would have been easy to get into the habit of skipping and making excuses, but I knew I had to get back on track – no matter how hard it was.

The ride is long, but it has been giving me more time along the way to prepare my heart. This past Sunday, I decided to started my preparation the night before beings it still felt like a struggle to get there and BE there. I prayed for the service, for the people, for my heart, and for baby girl.

That night, of course, ended up being a rough one. Baby girl was up for much of the night. After going to sleep late and then being up from 3am to almost 6am, I did NOT want to get up. I got up and got ready anyway, but once I headed out the door I realized I had forgotten I noticed the day before that my front tire was going flat. Thankfully, my husband was able to get that quickly aired up before having to leave.

The weather was perfect outside – blue skies all the way there. I had the Christian radio playing, and baby girl was singing along (before giving in and falling asleep part of the way there). We walked in the doors, and she was so happy and started clapping her hands right away. The praise time was awesome, and baby girl joined in and helped me direct the kids choir special. We even made it through nursery without a temper tantrum.

There is a difference between reasons and excuses. There are always valid reasons to do or not do things. We just have to be careful to not fall into making up excuses that keep us from doing what we ought. Excuses can keep us from our blessings, from our breakthroughs, from close moments with God, or even our little victories. God is worthy of our time and efforts, not our excuses!