And. And. And.

After writing my last post, I was reading through it before publishing and noticed that almost every sentence started with the word "and". I went about trying to correct it and wondered if it said anything about me, other than my total lack of care for some of the most basic rules of writing.

(Kinda like the word "and" with the quotations around it up above. Why are you supposed to put the period inside of the quotations? I think that is stupid and doesn't make sense, so I don't do it, unless the period was already inside the quote.)

I decided that what it maybe says about me is that I live a run-on sentence kind of life. I move from one thing to the next, never quite finishing one place before I have to be at the next. Things just keep going and going and going and going and going. And at (dang, there I go again.)

At some point, I have to stop and find time for punctuation in my life. I run right past all kinds of questions marks, periods, and exclamation points just because I am in such a hurry to get to whatever is next. My contract at the church offers me one personal retreat day a month. I've been a pastor for about 90 months of my life. I think I've taken 4 retreat days. I think 3 of those totaled about 6 hours all together. So really, in 7.5 years of full-time pastoring, I've taken 1.75 out of a possible 90 retreat days.

No wonder I can never stop. So, this month, a retreat day it will be. Mark it down on your calendars. August 22. I'm going to stop, be still, remember, listen, and spend time with the One who gives me life.

And then these sentences can just go back to being my inability to follow basic grammar rules.