2014 Goals Update

We're 13 days into the New Year. Many of you have set some goals, and chosen a "word of the year."  How's it going with all that?

I chose the word "Love."  And, it's going. I have noticed an effort to be more patient and loving with the toddler (he's in the "read-me-a-million-books" phase right now, and if not that, "color-with-me-for-hours.").  My prayers have been consistently directed for God to show me how to live out His love and mercy to others, giving Him permission to change my perspective on what that looks like.

If you will recall, I made a commitment to tell my husband every day that I love him... which I have since modified that to mean not always verbally--for the sake of "keeping it real." Right?  Actions speak louder than words, right?

So, this morning, it backfired.  I saw my opportunity.  He was frying himself some eggs--trying to make that perfect "over-easy."  I went up behind him and put my arms around him, and stood on tip-toe trying to smooch his neck.  I told him, "This is payback for all the times you try to hug me when I'm trying to fry eggs (which is one of my pet peeves--it drives me CRAZY because I'm a perfectionist about how I cook).  You know what he did--before I even got those words out of my mouth?  He, smiled,  turned off the burner and set the skillet to the side, and responded, "Doesn't bother me!" and took time to enjoy  my hugs and kisses, and hugged me back--letting me know the eggs totally didn't matter.  He totally upstaged me.

What a show-off.

Also, for 2014, I committed to faith building.  So as an initial step, not knowing what else to do, I started praying, to the best of my ability, The Divine Office--a schedule of prayer used by monks, priests, devout Catholics, from the time of early church history, based on Jewish prayer time traditions.  I have, for the past several months, been studying early church history, and the testimony and doctrine of this type of prayer was eye-opening.  (You can read more about it here, where they explain it and also post the prayers, Psalms, and other readings for the different times of day).

This is  new territory for me, but I realized that Daniel prayed this way--at set times every day. And then I realized that when I pray only when I feel like it or need it, with only my words, then my prayers are only me-centered.  That's not conducive to much spiritual growth. That's a commitment to ME, not to God.  So, as a step of faith, I committed to this new prayer life, to honor God, to make an act of faith.  To see what would happen. And the beautiful words of the Psalms and Scriptures have replaced my selfish, me-centered prayers. And when I go to add in my personal prayers during this time, I find they are more aligned to who God is, and His will, and matters bigger than lil' ol' me. I found these past few days that when I was asking for my personal requests, I was now not asking for ME, but for HIS glory.  I would try to explain more, but words just fail me. The experience has just been mind-boggling. So, let's just say, yes, my faith is building. I'm going to keep this up, in faith. I've also consistently reached for my Bible or Bible study books instead of my computer. Plan to keep improving on that.

And as for REST...  we'll just have to see, when this baby gets here! But today, remembering the word "Rest, " I didn't freak out when my littles just couldn't. get. going. It took TWO HOURS just to get through memory work, Bible, and maybe one other thing.  On a good day we can do EVERYTHING in less than two hours.  But I just smiled, and stayed calm, and in that rest, recognized that they were just tired. So, I let them off the hook, gave them a nice lunch, and sent them to BED. Now just waiting for the 4yo to wake up and we'll try again.


Blessings on your year, dear sisters.