How I love a new beginning! I love Mondays, the beginning of the week, I love new months, and new years! I love having it all before me to “start again” and leave the yuck of the past behind us.
Today was a good new beginning, we kind of dabbled with school, got the juices flowing in their little heads and started to get back into our routine.
We also cracked open our Bibles, got the year off right with day 1 under our belts of our Bible reading. Manna Church has not put out a new schedule for this year, as of this morning, so I printed out the one from last year and we are going to follow along with it. This year I am printing one plan, and many blank calendars, a copy for each child. I am going to have them write down what they read, I think this will help them keep better track of what they are actually reading. We will see.
Try to get the house a bit more organized this week, before we jump full force into school. However, as I am looking around and making lists of all that I need to do, I found a great deal of comfort in Ann Voskamp’s blog post today! She wrote the following 2 segments that I loved and will post on my bathroom mirror.
Contentment isn’t a state of organization, a weight on the scale, a state of better: better kids, better marriage, better health, better house. Contentment is never a matter of circumstances; contentment is always a state of communion — a daily embracing of God. A thankfulness for all the gifts – and moments and life, just as He gives it.
Trying harder may only bring harder trials and contentment, it won’t be found in the resolutions, but in the revolutions – in the turning round to God.
Embrace every scar as surgery -to make me more like His Son.
Embrace every pain as a peeling away of something -to make me know it in new ways, that He is enough.
Embrace every moment as a miracle - that it might never have been.
That makes me wake to all as grace.
I loved this. It is not about how much I clean, organize, get it all together – it as about finding peace in HIM – and trusting him with my chaos and allowing HIM to define who I am and what I stand for. Whew. That takes a great deal of pressure off me.
So, while I want to organize this house down to the details, I think getting myself immersed in the Word is so much more important. I tried last year to memorize Colossians. I failed. I got behind and I quit. So, this year I was going to stick to verses I find that I think I need to hide in my heart.
But, after coming to terms with the fact that I did not fail to accomplish my goal, I simply overestimated the time in which I would do it, I realize I can still keep going. I have the first chapter, sort of, down, and I will simply add to it. It may take 2 years instead of 1, it may take 3. I am pretty sure God does not care how long it takes me, as long as I keep going. So, that is the plan. Pick up Colossians where I left off and keep plugging along.
(Besides, how can the memorization of any amount of scripture ever lead to a failure? Not possible.)
I do love new beginnings. I love to start a new book, I love to start on a journey, I love the promise that a new day, week or year holds! So I am grabbing hold of the promises God has for me in 2012!
No comments:
Post a Comment