It’s the wee hours of the morning on December 31, 2012. The family is still asleep… one little boy climbed into bed with me a couple of hours ago and I can still hear him snoring in the bed behind where I am sitting. The years are passing so quickly! I still feel like exactly the same person I was as a little kid… not really sure how so much time has passed that I have children of my own now… And the years are passing for them, too. My oldest little one is halfway to driving a car already!
The moments drag out, but the years fly by.
Last year at this time, I wrote a post about how the most important lesson I learned in 2011 was a gem of knowledge I found in a moment of conversation with a dear friend:
“There are so many things we could be doing,” she said. “I guess the key is to know what our husband’s vision for our own family is and do the things that support that vision. Just because somebody else is doing great things with their family doesn’t mean it’s what I should be doing with my family.”
Would it shock you to know that I’ve spent all of 2012… an entire year… learning and relearning this same lesson? This lesson that I thought I had mastered a year ago?
As I look towards 2013, I’ve decided to do something I have never done before. I am going to enter the new year without making a list of New Year’s Resolutions.
Last year Papa the Farmer and I spent a whole morning writing out our resolutions and goals for 2012. We divided our life up into various areas, wrote down our goals for each area and then recorded the steps we planned to take to get where we wanted to be by now. But God had other plans. He had another road He wanted to take me down… A road with twists and turns I never would have imagined… twists and turns that made the goals we had set seem so irrelevant.
So this year I will not repeat that mistake. As I’ve been praying about what the Lord wants out of me for 2013 I’ve realized that it all comes back to one word.
Intentional. The Lord is calling me to be intentional. Not to just let life happen to me, not to just let the days slide by while I live in Survival Mode… but to intentionally happen to life. Intentionally happen to my own life and more importantly, intentionally happen to my children’s lives…
I first began thinking about the word “Intentional” when I was invited to join the blogging team at IntentionalByGrace.com (Visit me there?) Truly, it is only by Grace that I will be able to be intentional this year, for it goes against the very core of my human nature…
I don’t know what it will look like to spend the next 12 months being intentional. (But I will blog about it from time to time and let you know!) I’m praying that the Lord will show me the areas He wants me to be more intentional about. He has already shown me what the first area needs to be.
Do you like my blog button? I’m printing it off and putting it in a few key locations around the house to remind me… Intentional… Don’t miss my own life by letting the moments slide by… Melanie at OnlyABreath.com made this button for me and she’ll make one for you too, for FREE! Just click here to ask her for a button that features your very own one-word!
This idea of using only one word instead of a whole list of resolutions is the brain-child of Alece at OneWord365.com. I love Alece’s vision! I strongly encourage you to click that link and read her short description of Why One Word? And I love how she says if your one word doesn’t scare you at least a little bit, it’s probably not the right word… Because the idea of being Intentional does scare me…
What will your one word for 2013 be? Please leave it in the comments! I’d love to hear about it!
