Last weekend, smack dab in the midst of our monthly ACFW chapter meeting, my new-to-me-a-year-ago MacBook Pro decided to drop dead of a hard drive failure. There were no warnings, no blinking lights, no error messages... it simply went to sleep and never woke up.

After a couple visits to the nearest SimplyMac store it was determined that my hard drive was inaccessible, meaning anything I hadn't backed up to an external drive or to "the cloud" was lost forever.

Of course, in the classic scheme of things, the ONLY thing I hadn't dragged into Google Drive was my work-in-progress. I lost somewhere around 12,000 words. And I'm on a deadline.

After a night of mourning, and multiple attempts to apply countless random key combinations to resurrect my machine, I finally gave up. We returned to SimplyMac the next day, wherein I purchased a new laptop and a new desktop, as well. According to my husband, you should have the best tools available for the work you do. He's probably right, but I still wince at the bill.

It's taken me a full week to finally get all my software downloaded and everything back on track. Now I'm ready to start over, from word #1, on my newest novella, and the task feels daunting. So I've got this little ditty running through my head... (an improvement from last weekend, when I couldn't get Madonna's "borderline, feels like I'm going out of my mind" out of my head).



Enjoy a little Sinatra on this Friday evening and wish me well... I'll be spending the weekend BIC (butt-in-chair), pounding away at the keyboard.

It's time for the letter "F" in our ongoing a2z meme...

I debated for awhile what "F" should be... fear, frogs, friends, fellowship, finders-keepers... I ended up with the following: FALLING FORWARD.

You know that moment when you're teetering on the edge? That moment where an abyss of depression, or regret, or just the same-ol'-thing lies on one side, and the unknown, with all its fears and frustrations, lies on the other? How often do we let ourselves fall heedlessly backward into the familiarity of the abyss because we're afraid to fall forward? What if, in order to make forward progress, you have to FALL FORWARD?

We're all familiar with falling backward. Call it failure or backsliding or losing ground, falling backward indicates a failure to hang on to a position or place or achievement we've worked to attain. Many of us were told growing up to prepare to "have something to fall back on" in case our dreams of success in some creative endeavor failed us. As Denzel Washington told the University of Pennsylvania's 2011 graduating class, "I don’t want to fall back on anything except my faith. If I’m going to fall, I want to fall forward.”

Falling forward? Who falls forward? Even in those "trust tests" performed in group therapy, where you close your eyes and fall backward into the arms of your teammates, you're still falling backward. Imagine turning around, eyes wide open, and falling forward...


I believe that's what God asks of us when we come to those places of transition, those seasons of change, where we can either go 'round the mountain in the desert one more time or go on toward the Promised Land. We rack our brains for a plan, for a program, for "the next step" and He asks us to fall forward.

Huh? FALL FORWARD? Crazy. It looks like certain death. But as we look around, we realize we've reached a place where there's nothing we can DO, no action we can take, that will accomplish anything beyond wearing us out. We can bed down where we are, we can retreat, or we can FALL FORWARD with a childlike trust and reliance on God. It's the kind of trust that my grandson demonstrates when he stands at the top of a step (or in his high chair, or on the kitchen table) and holds out his arms to me, and falls forward. He believes I'll catch him, every time.

Why do we expect less of our heavenly Father?

Have you encountered a "falling forward" time? What was the outcome? 

Coffee FAIL.

See the rag where the oil cap should be?

I once knew of a man whose surname was Harder.

That's not so bad, there are worse last names. 

True. But his parents, whether as a joke or as an oversight, chose to christen their son Will. Will Harder. Sounds a bit strange with Harder, but not unbearable. Until they added an unusual choice for a middle name: Try.
Will Try Harder.

Will eventually became a newspaper deliveryman. As the story goes, when subscribers complained about the quality of the delivery service, Will simply left them a signed note on the next day's edition: "Will Try Harder."

Some people thought it was a joke. Others were offended. Poor Will was just signing his name. No one, it seemed, took his words seriously. No one expected any real improvement, because Will was just going to "try harder." 

When we say we're trying, we know we're lying. 
(Oh dear, my husband's predilection for rhyming must be rubbing off on me.)

There's a difference between trying to do something and doing it.

Trying assumes impending failure. Doing assumes eventual success.

Nike figured it out and introduced their "Just Do It" advertising campaign with tremendous success. Something about that phrase resonates within us.

Larry the Cable Guy figured it out with his "Get'r done!" routine, inspiring fathers of teenage boys to point to overgrown lawns and overflowing trash cans and say, "get'r done!"

But, if I say "I'm doing it" and fail, I'll look foolish. 
That may be, but as long as you just keep trying, you'll always be failing, never doing. 

Like the person who daydreams about getting out of debt, but keeps pulling out the credit card.
Or the one who longs to lose weight and tone up, but never exercises or changes eating habits.
The writer who wants to be published, but never sits down and writes the book.
"I'm trying!" We whine, to ourselves and our loved ones.

• Trying to get control of my temper.
• Trying to stop oversleeping/overeating/over-fill-in-the-blank.
• Trying to break off these unhealthy relationships.
• Trying to finish this project.

What goal, dream, or desire of yours has fallen into the sticky wicket of trying instead of doing?

I'm guilty. It's a lot easier to say "I'm trying" to write a book, than it is to write one. It's easier to say "I'm trying to make better use of my time, but it's just soooo hard!" than it is to put myself on a schedule and stick to it.

If someone asked you the status of that goal or desire of yours, would you send back a "will try harder" note, or would you be able to say "I'm doing it. It's not done yet, but I'm gettin'r done"?

(Nike neon photo by Photon@Flicker.com, get'r done photo by zampano!!!@Flickr.com, newspaper delivery boy from blogs.ocweekly.com, whining comic from gapingvoid.com)