This morning, I realized that my ambitions outrun my stamina.
I have more ideas than I have energy. The more I write, the more I discover that I want to write. One thought opens a door to another. A paragraph suggests a chapter. A chapter begins whispering about another book.
My want to and my ability to are not always in sync.
I got up hurting this morning. I took Tylenol. I drank a protein drink and made coffee. I put away the dishes. Tanya has been washing them more often as we use them. Then we sat together on the patio and drank our coffee. The weather was pleasant.
By the time I began to feel that I wanted to do something, it was nearly noon.
There was a time when I could push through almost anything. I completed three degrees in three years and began my doctoral residency in the fourth. During my years in radio, production, teaching, and graduate school, writing was woven into long days and longer nights.
But that was another season.
I am eighty-eight now. The ideas still come, perhaps more freely than ever. But the body carrying those ideas has traveled many miles. It asks for a slower pace.
That does not mean the assignment is over.
It means I must learn to receive the assignment one step at a time.
Paul wrote that God’s grace is sufficient and that His strength is made perfect in weakness. I have taught that truth for years. Now I am learning to apply it not only to suffering or crisis, but also to an ordinary morning when my mind is ready to run and my body is still tying its shoes.
Today I will reorganize the stack of papers I hurriedly hid before our house was shown yesterday. I will look through my notes, my Planner Pad, and the yellow sticky sheets filled with thoughts captured on the run. Then I will make a new list for today and tomorrow.
But the list must serve my strength. My strength cannot be forced to serve the list.
Perhaps I will make one decision. Perhaps I will work on one paragraph. Perhaps I will move one manuscript a little farther down the road.
That will be enough.
I have completed more publishable writing in 2026 than during any other comparable season of my life. It did not happen in one heroic burst. It happened through ordinary mornings, interrupted afternoons, cups of coffee, unexpected memories, and sentences written when I finally found my “want to.”
My ambitions may outrun my stamina.
But grace keeps pace with me.
And step by step, the writing still gets done.
