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Posts Tagged ‘plans’

Top 10 Goals for 2013 – Things to Accomplish

Posted in WONDER, tagged 2013, Alone, book, Dreams, girlfriends, goals, hopes, New Year, physical activity, plans, procrastination, read, Resolutions, think before I speak, top 10, Writing on December 31, 2012| 2 Comments »

Today is the end, and tomorrow the beginning of a calendar year.

If I were to make one New Years Resolution that I need to follow through with, it would be to awaken EVERY day viewing it (that day) as a brand new start.

Last week I got a head start on resolution-type promises. I attacked areas I could improve in my marriage, as a parent, and tried really hard to put my goals on the page that I might have with regards to my walk with God. Today is the easiest list to write, but maybe the most difficult to get around to actually completing … the goals I have for my own life.

So, here they are, my goals for my own Earthly existence for 2013: images-4

Finish editing my book – Well I thought that it would be completed by the end of summer, but it is so far not done. I need to finish it this year … for me, and then I will see what I want to do with it after that.
Continue with weight loss – Last June I saw the picture and was sickened by the image staring back at me. That photo brought me to tears also brought me to an awareness of my need to lose the weight that has been hindering living fully, and I must continue in this downward direction.
Increase physical activity – This has been the most difficult part of trying to improve my overall health. I know that weight would drop faster, and more consistently if I was more active. Surely I can make time for three walks a week to start.
Read one book each month – Another goal that means I need to ‘make time’ for something.
Think before I speak – Is there any more that needs to be said about this? I think not!
Call my parents more regularly – This is one thing I need to do, for them and for me. I will aim for every two weeks …
Stop procrastinating – This one really applies to all of my goals for 2013! In all things in my life, from finishing my book to responding to phone calls, I need to just get it done.
Take more time for girlfriends – This one does not come naturally for me, but it is one that I know I benefit from when I do it, and it feeds my heart and soul so greatly.
Get away for a writing weekend – Just me, my laptop, a place to walk, and time to pray …
Dream – I need longer term goals to plan for and dream about, not just surviving, but aiming for more out of life, this I need.

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Top 10 Goals for 2013 – Walk with God

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged 2013, Dreams, goals, GOD, hebrews 13:5, hopes, Micah 6:8, New Year, plans, Resolutions, top 10, walk with god on December 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

As the Christmas celebrations wind down and the New Year looms nearer and nearer I am in the midst of saying good-bye to the successes and failures of 2012, and saying hello to the goals for success in 2013.

The goals for 2013 that I have shared so far have been about my Earthly loves … my family. They are the ones who I consider to be such sweet gifts from God.

images-3 For today, though, I am considering my goals in my walk with God.

These goals are not easy to come up with, compared with my goals for my marriage and goals for my children. Maybe it is because I feel rather ‘pious’ in considering trying to improve in my walk with God … as though that is possible, not because I am so ‘good’, but because He is truly so good to me.

I could say that my list includes goals like reading my Bible everyday, witnessing to at least one person each week, or doing random acts of kindness for total strangers. All of those are good goals, but is that what God desires of from me?

The more I have tried to write goals, the less valuable them seem to be, in comparison to the grace, the freedom and the love that God offers to me (to us).

As I understand that the point of doing this in regards to my relationship with my husband or my relationship with my kids, I realize that my goals in those relationships are intended to improve my relationships with those people … they are self-improvement goals, for my benefit. I hope to improve something in their lives, thereby improving my own.

As I ponder my goals in my relationship with my Savior, and consider how I might improve my relationship with Him, I realize that there is nothing that I can do to change it, increase it, improve it. My relationship with my God is not dependent on my changes, or my actions, or my goals. My relationship with God has always been complete from the first moment that I handed the keys of my life over to my heavenly father. From that wonder-filled moment I was reunited with my Creator, and there was no altering my steps from that moment on.

Each day I awaken with Him in my first breath. He guides my every step, and when I side-step Him, He is still right beside me. He makes me aware of His presence in the wind through the trees, the joy of watching my children grow and learn, the scent of my hubby when he kisses me goodnight. He never leaves my side, whether I walk through rain or sun.

My goal for 2013, in my walk with God …

is to believe Him when He says, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)

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Top 10 Goals for 2013 – Marriage

Posted in Marriage, The Hubby, WONDER, tagged 2013, decisions, don't let the sun go down on your anger, Dreams, Forgive, Future, goals, GOD, hopes, Hubby, husband, Love, Marriage, New Year, Past, plans, Remember, Resolutions, responsibility, Stress, top 10, Trust on December 27, 2012| 1 Comment »

So, I am now at day number two of my Top 10 Goals for 2013, and this time the focus is hubby.

He REALLY does not appreciate posts about him, that mention him, that use him as an example … so, in honor of his preference that I not write about him … heck, I’m just going to do it anyway!

P&C Cropped

He has to forgive me … comes with the whole “love, honor and … forgive” 😉

Here are my Top Ten Goals for my Marriage for 2013:

Do not go to bed angry – I mentioned this yesterday in regards to our kids and it doesn’t hurt to say it again, “do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26).
Get away – make time for at least one night each season to get away together, sans children, as a couple. It is so easy, with all of the demands of life, to forget that the family we created started with us, just us, and for this family to continue we need to invest in us.
Respect him – As I write it I just know that some poor, misinformed lady is going to interpret respecting your husband as some kind of response to an archaic male dominated patriarchal society or religion. That is NOT what this is about! He is a child of God, like me, and as such I need to respect him …
Make his life easier – I am sure that there is at least one thing I can do each week to make his life easier … from answering the phone (instead of letting him, because it is always for him), to doing his dinner clean up once in a while (not too often, as I do not want him to get too used to being relieved of ‘his’ chore).
Thank him – so often when we live with someone it is so easy to forget our manners. Please and thank you are words I know I need to use more often with my man.
Let him decide – … and be okay with his decision! My hubby knows that if I say “you choose” his whole future is at stake. I need to trust him to make a decision, and trust the outcome!
Surprise him – there is nothing like veering from the normal, everyday, meatloaf every Monday stagnant way of living to bore a couple to mediocrity! Start seeing excitement and refreshment in someone else. I WILL surprise him … and the details of that, well those are between the two of us 😉 .
Remember the past – I need to reflect on those days, so many years ago, when we only knew adoring love (aka, before we were married 😉 ) … not bills, crisscrossing schedules, and to do lists.
Forget the past – we have baggage, and that is a reality, but the past is the past, and needs to be left there. We cannot move forward if I keep looking back.
Plan for the future – “Where there is no dreaming for the future, the marriage relationship is dead” (that is the Carole Wheaton interpretation of Proverbs 29:18) … enough said.

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Top 10 Goals for 2013 – Children

Posted in The Kids, WONDER, tagged 2013, Blessing, Boxing Day, Children, Dreams, gifts, goals, GOD, hopes, Intentional, Love, maturing, New Year, new years resolutions, plans, Prayer, pride, Resolutions, responsibility, top 10 on December 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

If you are reading this, then yes, you have survived the chaos that can be associated with Christmas Day.

For me, Boxing Day means two things; one is that I am ready to take down the tree, and clean up the house, and the other is that I start to think about next year.

Over the next few days, my posts will be related to my thinking about next year. Each day I will share Ten Goals that I have for myself, my children, my marriage and my relationship with God.

Today, I am starting with my ten goals for 2013, related to my three children.

Wheaton+Family-38-2-1602627366-O

God has blessed hubby and I with three healthy, productive, God-fearing/loving children. There was a time when we wondered if we would even have children with our own DNA. There was a time when we understood contentment with one, believing that our chances of carrying another to term would never be. There were dark and sorrow-filled times, times when we cried out to God, times when we grew to understood that today we only see a part (1 Corinthians 13:12) …

As parents we have taken those experiences, that pain, of the past and promised to not forget the gifts that these children are to us. Oh, we fail – daily we fail as parents, but our hearts desire is to not take them for granted, not forget our responsibility to be active in their lives, and to daily hand them back to their Creator.

My goals, as their mom, for 2013 are:

Be intentional in spending at least one time per month with each child – they are individuals, and I need to know them individual
Pray with each more often – so easy when they were young, but it is still such a beautiful thing to lay our burdens at His feet together
Be more involved in assisting them with school work (even unsolicited … mostly unsolicited) – I often am so desiring that I give them independence in their school responsibilities that I forget that they still need help, and I am able to help them!
Tell each child, every day, that I love them – I cannot just think it, for their benefit I need to give wings to my thoughts
Do not end the day, or go apart angry – this applies to so many relationships (every relationship). There is wisdom in “do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” (Ephesians 4:26)
Laugh with them – Oh how sad to spend a day living under the same roof and not sharing a laugh together … what sweet memories laughter provides!
Tell them why I love them – not just ‘I love you’ but ‘I love how you ….’, ‘I love that you ….’
Tell them that I am proud of them – I do believe that success breeds success, and if I let them know of the successes I see in their lives, I believe that it will magnify their ability to do even greater things
Praise their father, in their presence – although hubby and I do not parent exactly the same, we are one, united front when it comes to our kids, and our kids need to know that we love each other, and that we respect each other … and thinking it is not enough … I need to give words to my thoughts.
Give them wings – I cannot hold them too tightly, I need to hold them with enough flexibility that they can come and go. God’s example to us is to give us the choice to come to Him … there is no better parenting example! And there can be no greater gift than having my child choose to share their life with me.

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Sick

Posted in GOD, life, WONDER, tagged Ill, incapacitated, Life, plans, Proverbs 16:9, Sick, strength, virus, weak on October 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I had a “to do” list to accomplish, as we all do, so as stay on top of all that is demanded of us.

As the evening wore on fatigue was setting in quickly and with a dramatic vengeance. I knew that I would not be accomplishing much that I had planned for the evening.

By 8:30 I was crawling into bed with the hope that the early bedtime would help me ward off whatever it was that was causing the intense fatigue that I was feeling. It always amazes me how sleep can restore energy and health like nothing else. But my plan was not going to go as I hoped.

Despite the intense fatigue that took me to my bed early, sleep did not seem to want to find me. but shivering did, followed by a headache, followed by body aches. It was a night of little sleep, and much contemplation of how to get feeling better by morning, so as to not have to miss out on a day of work (especially since I had not finished my “sub.” plans yet), and all that was on my “to do” list.

By the morning I was aware that going to work was just not going to happen, due to how fatiguing it was just to walk to the kitchen. Even so, I thought that maybe I could get a head start on the mounds of laundry, if I was to be home all day.

The plans of my day, including work, my “to do” list and laundry, were not going to happen, as I could barely do more than walk from one room to the next, followed by a nap. The day was a wash. My plans were thrown out the window. Although I was home alone for much of the day, I was without the energy to do anything more than change channels on the television.

This day of being sick and having low energy reminded me of a verse in the Proverbs of the Old Testament (Proverbs 16:9):

“We plan the way we want to live,
but only God makes us able to live it.”

I had made my plans for my day at work, for my evening, and for the weekend to come. In an instant the plans I had made were changed. And I was reminded that “only God makes me able to live it.”

He is the wind beneath the sails of our life, and it is by Him, and due to Him that we are able to live our lives. He directs the pursuits that we make, it is He who gives fuel to our every move.

Even though I know that it is God who makes us able to live, I forget it. I rely on my own steam, forgetting that it is He who is the fire that produces that steam.

Being sick and unable to do anything on my own strength for a couple of days was a good reminder of where my strength really comes from. It was a reminder that I needed to have.

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