Diligent about the details

Doing the Hard Stuff

Hey sorry I haven’t posted anything lately.  Been kind of swamped.  I help take care of my dad….he’s in his 90’s, and had kind of a rough week, including an overnight in the hospital.  Anyway, he’s back home doing fine, but it got me to thinking the other day.  That and the fact that Volume 2 of Finding God in the Seasons of Divorce has been virtually done for a while, EXCEPT the tedious detail stuff that can drive you nuts.  It was these two things combined that gave me some thoughts I wanted to briefly pass on today.

With dad, it is one thing to make sure he gets to the hospital for care when it’s needed, and to be there for him while he is in.  But that is really the easy part.  The hard part is all the detail stuff surrounding it.  Rearranging his appointment schedule to adapt for the stay.  Or changing out the pill boxes and incorporating the new meds, as well as helping administer the meds of the ones that are difficult to handle.  And all the changes in meds can be so confusing, even for me.  Since they are only temporary prescriptions, it’s easier to help do them myself…but that is a lot of detail work to remember. 

Same way with the book.  Yes, the bulk of it was done.  It was the boring and time consuming tedium that was left of marking breaks where they go, and putting in the little editorial changes I have accumulated, or adjusting the scripts and fonts to be the way I want them for when I send it in.  It is virtually ready to go, although I may do one more quick run through for any leftover alterations I might want to make.

The point?  Well, isn’t life kind of like that.  If you want your marriage to work, then you may need to be diligent to do the detail work, the little things that keep things going.  It’s true of our jobs, our gardens, our homes, those awful tax forms, even working through all the paperwork required by the courts during divorce.  If you don’t develop the characteristic of sticking to things, then you would never accomplish anything.  Sometimes the work is fun, sometimes it is interesting, and sometimes…well, sometimes you just have to do it anyway.  Afterwards, you can rejoice at a job well done.  Imagine what would have happened if Jesus had decided to quit halfway through, or only done part of what it took for our salvation.  I’m glad He didn’t, aren’t you?  And I’m glad I stuck with the tedium to get these books going.  Have already had some very good comments, so I know it has helped some people already.  But not without the effort of doing the tedium.  Is there tedious tasks awaiting your hand today?

TL:dr  Things worth doing sometimes require us to do even the boring stuff.