When Your Best Efforts Fall Short
I stared at my computer screen, scratching my head in confusion. The tutorial for the new publishing software had seemed straightforward enough: Import your manuscript, format the chapters, add the front matter, and voilà – a perfectly formatted book would emerge. Yet here I sat, staring at a mess of misaligned text and wonky page numbers that looked nothing like the polished example in the tutorial video.
"I followed every step!" I muttered to myself, replaying the tutorial for the dozenth time. But something was clearly missing, and my frustration level was rising faster than bread dough in a warm kitchen.
It reminded me of so many areas in life where we diligently follow the "instruction manual" but still end up scratching our heads at the results.
Hope for the Heavy Heart
Some of you have probably wondered where I’ve been and why I haven’t been writing. It’s quite a long story, so let me sum it up the best I can. In the past three weeks, our entire ministry team has been sick with the flu. Tennille and I finished preparing for and hosted the annual ladies’ retreat with nearly 60 ladies in attendance for the week. Jason celebrated his birthday. And we’ve been finding and setting up a new sponsorship in Wales after finding out that the church hosting us was told they no longer qualified. Yes, due to some weird changes in the wording of the laws regarding sponsorship, our sponsorship was revoked, making our visas invalid.