First of all I have about 7 posts that need to be written. Oh my goodness I am SO behind. I will catch up in the next week.
In 2011 I chose to declare one word my goal word for the year. In place of several resolutions I decided to choose a word and attempt to live that word for the entire year. I prayed about the one word that summed up my shortcomings and how I could improve my focus to live more like Jesus in a world that is so easy to lose sight of him. In 2011 my word was intentional. I wanted to be more intentional about my home life, my work life, my Jesus life…and more importantly I wanted all of those ‘lives’ to be in agreement with one another. I wanted to intentional act like the same Christian woman in each aspect of my life.
When I reflect on 2011 I feel successful. My family probably heard the word ‘intentional’ 10,000 times if they heard it once. Once I set my sights on trying to live a more intentional life I was very focused and became aware of areas in my life I wanted to adjust or activities I wanted to abandon in order to focus on the more important areas.
Fast forward to 2012. What is the word this year? JOY. That’s right Joy. 2011 was an awesome year that brought me a sweet little girl that I love, I was able to watch the love between Reed and Alison grow, Randy and I enjoyed several vacations with friends and family and had an overall awesome year.
So…why do I need to focus on JOY? Although 2011 was a great year on paper, the everyday part was not joyful. I found myself being dragged down by the little things. Ali is still the world’s worst sleeper (yes, she is almost a year old and still won’t sleep), Randy and I had a tough time adjusting to life with 2 very small and very needy kids. I will admit it, we argued and went our separate ways several times. Reed is SUCH a strong willed child and he pushed me to my limit several times. My point in all of this is that it is so easy to miss the JOY in daily life. For 2012 I want to stop and focus my energy on finding and celebrating that joy everyday.
So what are you doing for 2012? I hope that by publicly stating my focus word for the year it will help keep me accountable to live it everyday in 2012.
That is great Jules! No one talks about the hard part of having two small children depend on you. Yes it is fun and filled with joy but it is also totally exhausting and takes away from time with your spouse. You are not alone in being beat down by it. Sleep is lacking in our house too and it makes me grouchy sometimes and strong willed well I don’t think I need to say much about that 🙂
Great resolution and I think keeping it to one word makes it simple and easy to remember. I’m sure you saw my resolutions on our blog but I basically want to stop pining away for what other people have and appreciate what we have here and today because it is pretty dang sweet!
Love you guys and hope to see lots of the Baldwins in 2012!