If you've read the blog a while you know I like picking a word for the whole year instead of resolutions. It does help me stay more focused and I find it sticks with me and shapes my year. Like always, it's almost February and I'm just settling down on it, but I'm excited that it's not what I was thinking God was going to lead me to pick. I like to try to have a word and a verse to focus on, and spend time praying about what God wants for my year. I thought it was going to be IRON with my verse being Proverbs 27:17. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17 God has been bringing this verse to mind over the past few months, challenging me to step up, showing me where I'm hiding and disobeying. I hate being the iron. I enjoy sharing what God is doing in my life, but the moment someone says it convicted them I feel so bad, even if they don't mean it in an irritated way. I'd just rather be the peacemaking, don't make waves type person, but God keeps throwing me in situtions where I'm the weird one and telling me he wants to use me. My response is always either sharpen me, or find someone else to be your iron, and I say no. Let's be real, typically the iron isn't the most popular. We shoot the messenger all the time. Lately, God's been sticking me in situations that don't even require me to open my mouth to be the iron. Somehow me manages to use me even through my defiance and refusal to speak. Honestly it's irritating, but I guess that's how my kid feels when he tells me no and I make him do something anyways. So with this being such a lesson lately, and one I'm not getting very fast, I expected this to be where he was taking me for the year, but I'm so thankful it's not. It's a lesson I'm still learning, something that I'm not off the hook on, but he has blessedly given me another thing to focus on that will be more enjoyable as he continues to sharpen me and break my unwillingness to be used. This year he's given me the word NATURE Here's how I'm expecting this to manifest itself over the year: 365 Days outside I've really been trying hard to get Danny outside everyday and myself, although sometimes I just stay in and send him with daddy. Part of NATURE is our focus on being outside more, including me. It is so good for us all in so many ways and I really want to be out more and more, hopefully having him spend most of his warm season days all outside. It won't be long before he can be running and exploring all on his own without my watchful eye, so helping him know boundaries now and get used to playing outside will encourage this as he grows up. Hopefully, this will look like meals outside, naps for baby skippy in the shade, veggie gardening with Danny's help, early morning exercise and Bible study on the patio for me, more bonfires, and more playing with the animals. Danny loves being outside, so for him this will be exciting, I just can't get lazy about it. We have plenty of places to play and shady spots to rest so there's no excuse to be in on the couch. We made it all last year without ever using the air conditioning and I'm hoping to do that again with windows open and hopefully some pretty screen doors! Verse Study and Hymn FocusAlong with my BSF, I'd like to spend time really looking into the verses and hymns about God's wonders, power, and creation. I hope to include little Danny into part of this too. I think since it's still winter, we'll start with snow. I'm a mountain girl and love snow, and my mom is the same way. I've heard her challenge people who are constant complainers of snow to spend a snow day and read all the different verses that mention snow. I like the idea and think we'll start there. I see God so easily in creation and it is such a good way to remind me to be thankful. ArtI love painting, specifically painting nature scenes and tend to be inspired by poems and hymns I stumble across. I'd love to do more art in general and see it as a way I can worship God. Ever since I decided to paint as a form of thanks and worship of God for all he created, I tend to have more patience and enjoyment in my painting. When I get frustrated, I remind myself that I'm doing it as a way to remember God, what he has made, his immense power and beauty and the focus isn't on perfection of the final product. I really want to paint more and I'd love to have a collection of paintings paired with hymns and poems to reflect over God's creation and beauty. HealthWe've been big on slowly switching to a healthier lifestyle in the last year. I love listening to health podcasts, reading blogs from doctors, and (nerd alert!) reading medical journals. I've always loved medical journals and research, and now that I'm out of school and can read what I want, I'm remembering again what it is like to love learning. Everything I focus on mostly falls back to what my mom taught me about health as a kid, The way God intended it is probably the Best. There's more and more push out there for getting back to things the way Nature meant it to be, or as I like to say, God intended it to be. This means more cooking at home, less purchased, processed food. Less chemical products, less unhealthy habits. More movent and activity, more time as a family, more time in the dirt and sun, less technology. We've already done so much, but we're just going to continue to try baby stepping through these little changes and try to make them become a part of normal life. This also pushes us to live more without things, which is always a good reminder, continuing to push us to be content. My first year I ever picked a word I chose content, and it is always a prayer for me and for my family, so I'm glad to see how it will resurface. Contentment brings so much calmness, peace, enjoyment of life, and worship of God. It's more than just not wanting stuff, it's a wonderful blessing we can only find in God. I think that is why Paul referred to it as a secret. As we journey on I hope to share what we're doing over the year. How things are going, what we're doing and changing, maybe even share some of my art. I see this as a wonderful blessing God has set before me if I am willing to take hold and run with it. ...And I could just dance with joy that my word is not IRON. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Psalm 19:1-6
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