When I look back over the past few years I marvel at what seems to me as inconsistency. I haven’t been the stable (mentally and otherwise!) person I hope to be. I haven’t been at everything, nor have I *wanted* to. I haven’t stuck to the gym schedule or the sleep schedule or the work schedule. I haven’t been consistent.

But as I look a little closer, lean in, I see something else…
I see a tick-tick-tick… or as my kids put it “same-y, same-y, oh oh ooooh”.
This tick-tick is subtle – its the dishwasher packed and repacked. Its the lunchboxes. Its the “hurry, let’s get in the car, we’re late…. again”.
We’ve ticked to church week in and week out. We’ve ticked to school and to work. We’ve tick-tick-ticked at home with stories and playtime and discipline. Tick-tick-tick.
Like a metronome of stability, rhythm, consistency.

Its a gentle pace – one we can manage right now. Swaying with the ebbs and flows of sickness or stress or crisis. But as I’ve wedged the metronome’s tick-tick-tick into my ears and kept my feet moving to the beat, I’ve realised this…there is fruit in consistency!
Fruit that will outlast me, fruit that will feed others, fruit that will build a legacy.

Consistency promises space and joy – in the rhythm of my consistency I find room to enjoy myself, my children, my little piece of the world. I find joy in the normal, and find the strength to choose to laugh (rather than cry).

Consistency gives me leverage. If I build to a beat now, I can have more strength and stamina to use what I’ve been given for others. I’ll have more space in my heart, my head and my calendar.

As it stands, I don’t love same-y same-y over and over again. But consistency is bigger than that – its rhythm, not repetition alone. Its moving within a routine and tick-tick-tick that works for us – which frees me up to meet you in your beat too!

There is something to showing up, time and time over. Showing up for my family. For my friends – to parties and teary-moments alike. Showing up to church and to work and to the chores. It counts!

It counts that I got there, late and frazzled, but… I got there.
It counts that I wasn’t *all* there but most of me was.
It counts that I kept showing up…
It counts for consistency. It counts for tomorrow. It counts for forever.