All The Things

It's crazy that it's April, and this is my first post of the year. My intentions were to honestly come back in January, but God had other plans. I needed to get before Him and get quiet. I needed to cry and pour all of 2015 out to Him before I could move on to 2016. It seemed like such a slow process, but that was exactly what I needed. I needed to have no deadlines and no distractions. This time away from blogging and social media have been just so, so good.

One thing that God really used to help me was Lara Casey's Powersheets, worksheets that inspire intentional goal planning. Working through the sheets helped me process 2015, as well as focus on the seeds I felt God was planting in my heart for 2016. Now that I am working through the three-month-refresh-checkpoint and my goals are being redefined, I wanted to show you some of my goals that I came up with in January:

Invest in my marriage more

Begin to get out of debt (thanks, student loans) and save more

Slow down

Live a healthier lifestyle

Cultivate genuine friendships and community

Spend more time with Christ

Do more of what fires me up!

In a nutshell, here's my "why" for these goals: When I'm 80, I want to be surrounded by my husband, children, grand and great-grands, family, and friends with a life full of joy, peace, purpose and Jesus. I want strong community. I don't want to focus on ALL THE THINGS; things that won't matter when I'm 80, or when I stand before Christ.

Back in January, I chose "grace" as my word for the year. Being one who strives for perfection, this is a big word for me to process. This means stopping dead in my tracks in the pursuit of perfection, or as Lara Casey says, to "stop chasing perfection." It means letting 2016 be  beautiful with the imperfection. But that's another post for another day.

Although "grace" is my word for the year, my word for the next three months is "simplify". God has really been taking me on quite the journey on simplifying and decluttering not just the physical things I have in my home, but in other areas of my my life as well. Although life will never truly be simple, it doesn't have to be as cluttered and distracting as we make it. I will explain more in my next post, but I am sure by the new domain and other changes on this site, you figured out that we are going in another direction on this blog (I'm also not completely done with the changes so bear with me!). So, welcome to the new space!