I shared a month ago that I feel challenged to make this
year one of action, not just cheap words.
About how important it is to actually commit to what is necessary, get
that done, and not commit to things I shouldn’t.
So, today I wanted to share my personal, practical To-Do
list for 2014, now that we’re already in February (smile):
- Be a support & encouragement for my husband on a daily basis: by listening to how his day went, looking nice for him, being friendly, loving, attentive & available when he’s home (not just giving him his own to-do list for the evening!),
- Organize and carry out this year’s bilingual home-schooling curriculum for our kindergartener & preschooler,
- Make sure everyone is fed healthy & balanced meals & snacks at the right times (which involves keeping my shopping list up-to-date, because if there’s no food in the house, that might present a problem!),
- Keep the house relatively clean & organized within the realm of possibility (the actual definition of this with three kids is pretty flexible, obviously…),
- Lose 30 lbs & get in shape through diet & exercise (yes, despite the fact that no one believes me, that is how much I need to lose to be where I should be weight-wise, so let’s just leave it at that!),
- Answer family and ministry-related emails in a reasonable amount of time,
- Stay on top of discipline issues, learning opportunities, safety, etc, 24/7 for three little ones who love to play together (most of the time) but don’t always agree on the “how” or “when” or “where”… without me resorting to yelling, disciplining harshly, ignoring due to laziness, being easily distracted by secondary things,…but instead guiding & correcting them in God’s love & truth,
- Focus on living a joy-filled life, that also brings joy to my husband and kids through the fun & creative ways we interact together.
Sounds simple enough!
Ha! Good joke. Even writing it out exhausted me, not to
mention contemplating carrying this out in the everyday practical world where these
are my goals for this year. But they
are. This year’s list is limited to
things that are really important for the well-being of our marriage, family,
health, etc. But a lot of the time it
still seems overwhelming. Or more than
overwhelming, knowing how I haven’t stuck to things well in the past for more
than a couple of months, I confess that I have moments of doubt that this year
will actually be different.
But so far, over this first month, things have gone pretty
well (minus a couple of set-backs and start-overs). I haven’t, and know I still won’t, do these
perfectly all through 2014 (I could settle for losing 29 lbs, wink!). But at the end of the year, I really, really
hope to be able to look back and say, “My ‘yes’ was ‘yes’ this year. What I committed to was accomplished; it
wasn’t just another empty promise. It
actually happened!”
To be honest, though, there’s something else on the list
this year, up at the top, and it’s been key in the forward-progress with the
other goals so far. Although saying that
it’s “on the list” is actually about as absurd as saying that “breathing” is on
the list. Because it’s that incredibly
important. And though I’ve known my
whole life how important it is and every single year it’s been on “the list”, I’ve
usually ended up neglecting, pushing it aside, or moving it from primary down
to secondary priority within the first few weeks, which has had a very negative
affect on every other area of life. This
“goal” is:
- Have a daily devotional/worship time in the morning.
There, I admitted it.
In the past few years, and especially since being a mom, I
have been so inconsistent about spending time daily praying, reading the Bible,
or really worshipping God… I have gone
through seasons where I do regularly for a while, then it ends up being more
mechanical than relational (a simple checking off of the list), due to
tiredness, busyness, frustration, even bitterness. Then I have tended to stop being regular
about it and only do it every now and then when I can’t take life anymore, like
a desperate gulp of air for survival.
I’ve always known that I need to be connected with
Him in a fresh and consistent way, but in a practical sense I’ve been acting
like I can do life in my own strength some of the time, on some days, for
some weeks or months or years. This is
absurd because, 1) I honestly can’t do anything worthwhile and lasting in
my own strength (my crushed pride has realized that in very tangible ways over
the past year especially), but more importantly because, 2) it’s not about
fitting time with God into my busy schedule. It’s about me fitting into His
schedule. And how can I really know what
His schedule (read: plans, guidance, blessings) looks like unless I spend time
with Him and cultivate that relationship?
I’ve always known this, theoretically. I accepted Jesus’ death for my sins at age 4
and have believed in Him ever since. I’ve
been in ministry my whole life, as a missionary kid & missionary adult. I’ve always advised/counseled others on the
importance of having a devotional time in daily life. And yet I have been neglecting this fundamental
aspect of life. And it’s been
showing in the way life has consisted more of surviving on an emotional and
spiritual level than thriving.
Regardless of how encouraging, supportive and loving my
husband is (and he really is!), regardless of how rewarding it is to be a mom
to three sweet, smart, cute and funny kids (and many days it is very
rewarding!), those emotional highs, feelings of fulfillment, satisfaction of
being needed, etc., are not enough to satisfy the deepest needs of the soul.
Everything on the “to-do list” above is important. They are things that I know I should do as a
woman, wife & mother. They are
things that God wants me to do. But
they shouldn’t really be my first focus:
My #1 goal should be “breathing”.
And when I am breathing as I should (living life connected to God in an
active way on a daily basis), those other things will be by-products of the
energy produced by those deep breaths. Yes,
they will continue to require purposeful planning & actions; being a wife
& mom full-time isn’t for wimps (smile)!
But when I am constantly reminded of the truth that the God who created
the universe loves, accepts, forgives, & guides me, His Spirit also
encourages, convicts and enables me to do what needs to be done. Not out of a “have to” mentality, but a “get
to”, a privilege, a result of love.
Because being connected to and reminded of true love is that beautiful
and that motivating.
Maybe you think it’s great that I usually end with something
about God. Or maybe it annoys or
confuses you. The truth is that I have
to end with that, because otherwise I’d be misleading you. If I wrote something like, “I’ve been
struggling with being the kind of mom/wife I should be, but now I’ve
psychologically convinced myself of the importance of doing these specific
things, so I changed myself!” or “I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to get
in shape, but now all of that has changed thanks to my newfound amazing
will-power, inner-strength and self-control”, I’d be lying. Maybe you can, all by yourself. But I definitely can’t. Oh, sure, I can for a day or a week or a
month, but then old tendencies, automatic responses, and bad habits come back. Defeat, despair and fear of failure set in
again. Unless I stay connected to
Jesus and let Him change me.
That doesn’t mean that now I never, ever revert to an old
bad habit, because sometimes I still trip & fall or temporarily forget
about my commitments. But it’s
definitely a process where those bad responses are less and less frequent: the
closer I keep myself to Him in a real, active relationship (not just a
mechanical routine to check off for the day and also not something that just
happens on days when I “feel” like it), the further away I am from going back to
old tendencies and the less appetizing they are too.
So, that’s why it always comes back to Jesus for
me. Because without Him, I am seriously,
totally, and hopelessly lost in broken commitments, fear of failure as a
wife and mom, pride in fake successes that inevitably end in hard falls, and
same-old, same-old. Only by God’s grace
and in His strength can I be the woman, wife, and mom He has called me to
be.
So, taking deep breaths!
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