You know that saying – you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s hit home a lot over the last hundred days. I made a commitment to my Session and my congregation that I would blog every day while we were unable to meet in person for worship. At the time I thought I might be blogging for a month.

I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Now I’ve been at it for a hundred days. It’s a measure of time that the States use to take stock of what a new President has accomplished as their term begins.

So maybe it’s a good idea to take stock of the things that I’ve learned during one hundred days of blogging:

1. It ain’t easy! Seriously, there have been days I have stared at a blank screen for hours before I finally came up with an idea of what to write about. There were times when the technology fought with me and my posts were late. There were days when I thought I was blogging about one thing, only to write about something totally different. But despite the difficulty, I do believe it has been worth it. And isn’t that a great life lesson – sometimes it’s difficult, but if it’s worth it, keep going!
   
2. Come up with a plan. At the beginning, the only plan I had was to blog every day. As time went on, I figured out that I needed a plan – some days that I worked a little harder so that I could afford to take some other days off. I learned that having a routine around certain days (ie Meme Monday, Worship Resource Saturday, and Worship Sunday) would lighten the load overall because I wouldn’t feel the pressure to come up with an idea those days – I’d just have to fulfill the mandate of the day. Yeah. That’s sounding like another life lesson: being organized, having a plan and a routine, makes life easier to deal with in general.
   
3. Change is constant, and that’s not a bad thing. When I began blogging I planned on only doing a little sermon video on Sundays. But when it became apparent that in-person worship would be suspended for quite a while, our musician Eric Medhurst stepped up and offered some music to add to the blog. And then one of our elders asked if she might contribute a video scripture reading. And now, when you come to the blog on Sunday morning, there is a whole little service there. It’s in pieces and you have to ‘assemble’ it yourself, (I like calling it an IKEA service – some assembly required), but it’s there. And it’s only possible because things have continued to change. So life lesson number three: things will always change, be willing to learn and adapt and grow!

I still don’t know what I don’t know. I was chatting with a colleague this morning and we were both wondering what church will be like when we are able to meet again. None of us know.

But here’s what I am sure of: faith will continue, God will be with us, our story isn’t over yet.

Until tomorrow, dear friends – trust in the Good Shepherd!