day twenty-two: FAIL

Today we were supposed to take pet food to the Humane Society, where we got our two four-legged babies.

Our "firstborn," Moses: five years old. He loves to give hug, growl, and run fast.

Our second, Mira: two years old. She loves to eat, cuddle, and run from Moses.

This was supposed to be a fun and easy project. We could take the baby and see all the dogs and cats and puppies and kittens. It would take virtually no time to drop off the pet food.

But we didn't.

I'd like to say that we were engaged in some noble act of self-sacrifice or service in the name of Christ, but we weren't. We visited with Suzy's grandmother picking greenery and flowers from her yard, and then Suzy decorated at the church while I watched the baby. I did an indoor duathlon at the Spice of Life Food and Fitness Fest, and going to and from it I passed within half a mile of the Humane Society, but didn't stop. (My friend, Lucy, also beat me in the duathlon by 6/10 of a mile...another FAIL.) We went to Suzy's parents for dinner and to visit with Dinah, Suzy's German sister, before she went back to Europe. And then it was too late.

We had multiple opportunities to drop off the pet food, but we never took advantage of them. It's not all that different from the way we were before this Lenten season - knowing of plenty of ways we could serve others in need, particularly with food, but rarely (if ever) taking advantage of those opportunities.

Jana Riess has a great blog post called "Flunking Lent," and in it she offers this helpful reflection from Lisa Nichols Hickman's entry, "Confessions of a Mid-Lent Crisis":

Christ is Lord and Savior, not us. My failure helps me to follow the one who is discipline, the one who is disciplined, the one who calls us to follow him -- not our charts, plots or ploys. We are saved by grace, not by our own doings or undoings....

As an obsessive perfectionist, today's FAIL makes me twitch. I want to drive to the Humane Society before midnight tonight and throw cans of Friskies over the fence, just to say I got it done today.

But I won't. Because tomorrow is a new day, with new opportunities to serve and new opportunities to fail.

Thank God for grace.