Hello 2018

Today we are on the cusp of a brand new year.  What do you do as you look forward?  Do you make New Year’s Resolutions or ignore the whole thing?  I used to try to make resolutions, but I’d get about 2 weeks in and quit.  Yep, I’d quit.  I am not motivated by goals.  I don’t do them because I’m more of a “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” kinda girl.  So when I heard a radio DJ make the challenge not to do resolutions, I was thrilled.  Instead, she chooses a word for the year.  I started doing this, too, but it seems I forget halfway through the year.  GAH!

This year, I chose the word “deliberate“.  Or rather, God gave me the word. He must know I need some help in that category.  Here are some ways I foresee me being deliberate in 2018..

1. I want to get to next December and know that I have been very deliberate in my relationships with a-God, b-my husband and c-my girls.

a. Deliberate with God in that I spend MORE time with Him…talking to Him, listening to Him and journaling about Him.  More of falling in love with Jesus, daily!

b. Our girls will be going to college in a year and a half.  It will be back to just the two of us and I want our relationship to continue to grow and be strong.  I don’t ever want to tire of spending time with him and I am ready to do some traveling and experience the next phase of life with him!

c. As I just said, the girls will be going to college.  I know once they leave, life will never be the same, and while I will mourn the loss of  “sameness”, I will celebrate the fact that my husband I have raised able-bodied adults (gulp)!  I am so proud of them and the young ladies they are and I will completely miss the relationship that we have now… so I want to drink in every moment that I can, deliberately.

2.  I want to be deliberate with the friends in my circle here in town.  (This is yet another reason to dump FB!)  I think we have lost the art in being a friend.  I want to put down the phone, look my girlfriend in the eyes and really HEAR what she has to say.  James 1:19 says that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to get angry.  I really need to work on the first two.  I also want to make time for the ladies in my connect group at church and really invest in them.  But, I don’t want to get so busy that I am no longer deliberate.  But that’s another post.  LOL!!

So, in the coming new year, I challenge you… if you aren’t goal oriented, drop the resolutions, sit quietly for a few minutes and find a word that God will give you that you can implement into your daily life.  I promise you that as we venture forward and seek God for His help, we will be better off for it at the end of  next year!  Have a happy and blessed  New Year, my friends!