I’m at Anthropolgie and I’ve already broken two of my cardinal shopping rules:

1. Do not go into Anthropologie.
2. Do not touch the merchandise.

Fingering the hem of a jewel-toned shift in raw silk, I break a third.

    3. Do not daydream about wearing the clothes.

Here I go…

When I wear this dress people will see me differently. I’ll step out of the background like an actress stepping into a lone spotlight. I will be respectable and mature but still fun and unconventional. I’ll look like I’ve just come back from a trip around the world, like I, only minutes ago, left a so-cool-you-don’t-know-it’s-name gallery, like I have class or, at the very least, style.

I may as well take it to the dressing room. There, looking at myself in the mirror wearing someone else’s clothes, I can step outside my stay-at-home-mom, covered-in-snot reality. I can be someone new. 

I forget, conveniently, that the dress is dry clean only, that I’ll wear it once (to a pizza buffet, not an uptown soiree) and then throw it in a pile of clothes awaiting the day when I have enough extra cash to take it to the cleaners.

This dress will not change my life. It won’t fit my life either. It will make me painfully aware of the life I wish I were living. It will mock me from the dirty clothes pile. It will make me wish I had better shoes to wear with it, a more flattering hair color, daintier earrings.

Whatever it is I expect from this dress, I can be assured it will not provide.

But here in the store, holding it close to my chest, smelling that perfectly new smell, all I can imagine is a new me, a better me. In this dress.

I am incredibly impulsive. 

That limits my success as a blogger.

Blogging best practices are to stick with a single theme, idea, or topic and write consistently within those parameters. Recently I decided to go that route and began re-orienting my blog along those lines. That explains all the clothes posts for those of you who suddenly thought, “Huh. This is new. I’m not sure I care about clothes.” For those of you who enjoyed the clothes posts, I’m happy you did.

I made that decision quickly and ran into it headlong. I shared some of the thoughts from my recent writing and even let you in on my year-long project. I was so excited about it. I just wanted to share.

Here’s the problem: I don’t want to blog about clothes all the time. I spend between eight and twelve hours every week writing about clothes. I don’t really want to come up with something new for this space.

I know, I know… Why don’t I just post the stuff I’m writing? Well, honestly, because it’s not ready. I’m not ready. I need more time to digest what I’m studying and to sort through what I’m writing. A book about clothes may sound simple. But a book about clothes and God is not.

Bottom line—I like to write casually about random things to stretch myself as a writer. I do not and have never seen the blog as a place for finished writing (although I do see it as a place for mostly polished thinking). For me, blogging is an exercise.

When I tell people I’m a writer, I’m not really referring to the blog. It’s writing, sure, but it’s not my best work. It’s my workbook. It’s doodles in the margins of my musing. It’s a place to wander and sort. I don’t edit blog posts much. I don’t research for them. I just write stuff. 

I know of bloggers whose best work is their blog, who pour their creative energy into making it a platform and developing a community among their readers. That’s why they have thousands (or millions) of readers. Also, probably because they’re really great writers. :)

Part of this post is inspired by pride. Which is bad. But I’m writing it anyway because I feel some level of responsibility to my readers. I don’t have a baseball stadium’s worth of people reading this thing, but I do have a hundred or two of who drop in faithfully. To you I want to say, I’m sorry for yanking you around. I’m sorry for being distracted and inconsistent.

But, just so you know, I won’t ever be an every day, always-focused blogger. And now that you’ve been warned, I don’t have to feel guilty about it.

From now on, I will blog casually and freely.

I will write stuff. I’d love for you to read it.

Andy Stanley blows my mind with the most obvious stuff. Really, it’s not that he’s not wise or creative. He is. It’s just that the best things I’ve ever heard him say are so plain. 

His book Enemies of the Heart, based on a series he preached called “It Came from Within,” is yet another example of profound simplicity. 

In this book, Stanley suggests that most all of our bad behavior springs from one of four heart conditions (guilt, anger, greed or jealousy) and that while we may be tempted to modify our behavior, real transformation won’t occur until we root around in our hearts.

 At one point in the book Stanley asks if you’ve ever said something like ” I don’t know where that came from” in response to something inappropriate, mean, spiteful (etc.) you may have said. His response to this haunts me. He says, “You want to know where that came from? It came from your sick heart.” 

The first time I heard him say that was four years ago. I say it to myself now every time I catch myself inching into guilt, anger, jealousy or greed, and when you start thinking about it, almost every misstep we make grows out of one of those four conditions.

If you haven’t read the book, you should. Or listen to the sermon series (which you can probably buy on Northpoint Community Church’s website). This is truly transformative truth, the kind of stuff that messes with your status quo.