Philippians 4:12-13

Since I settled on "contentment" for my word for 2013, I had to do something with this passage of scripture when I read something that pointed out that 4:13, which people quote all the time, really relates to the verses before it where Paul talks about learning to be content with his life, not matter what. That's what I am yearning for - contentment.

Satisfaction

As I mentioned on  Saturday, I am working through a few new apps to help me with some spiritual growth in the new year (I'll talk about the apps I'm using on Thursday).

On January second, in my Old Testament reading about Adam and Eve, the writer said something like, "in spite of everything God had given them, Adam and Eve were looking for something more and succumbed to temptation."

Satisfaction. Contentment. Adam and Eve weren't content with all they had - they wanted more. They wanted the one thing God denied them.

Ouch.

I live a comfortable life in a country that has no concept of its own abundance. Yet I often want more - a house with one more room, more books, more stuff. How many of my goals for 2013 would be achieved simply by developing a contented spirit, choosing to be satisfied with the life I have right now?

This idea has grabbed hold of me enough that I am already thinking of changing my word for 2013 (maybe it's silly to try to pick a word before January! I keep choosing one and changing it a few weeks in!). Maybe "satisfied" is a better focus for the coming year.

One Little Word 2013

It's time to pick my word for 2013.... I'm having trouble settling on one.

It doesn't help that I picked several last year before sticking with one. I tried all sorts of I'm-getting-my-stuff-together goals and plans last January that didn't even make it to February.

This year, I at least want to have my word, even if I don't set any other goals or plans.

I thought about keeping last year's word - SAVOR. It's still a good one and still something I need to remember.

But I'm contemplating the word SLOW for this year.
SLOW down
Take things SLOW
SLOW down my thoughts
SLOW down my plans
SLOW down my pace
SLOW down my expectations

Don't rush through the moment or the day or the week...or my life.

SLOW.


What do you think? Do you pick a word? You can read a smidge about the practice of choosing a word here - this is a link for a class that focuses some activities on the word. I have thought about taking it, but I never finish those because I get too busy. So I'm going to save my money this year, but there I still love the idea of picking a word... You can also go here to read some of my musings on past words I've chosen (and some I've chosen and later discarded).

If you are picking a word, I'd love to know what it is. Feel free to share in the comment section below.

Happy 2013!!

Happy Holidays

Yes, I know I had a week away as we recovered from vacation. But now I am on a break from school - we have painting to do and some third quarter planning that needs to be done. And we want to rest and hang out and build Legos and celebrate birthdays and Christmas and all that good stuff. So, unless inspiration strikes and I have to blog, I'll be taking a break until after the first of the year. When I get back, we can see if I have come up with a new "word" for 2013 or if I will keep working on SAVOR next year and see what else there is to talk about.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas and a safe and happy New Year's! See you in 2013!

SAVOR - an update

I haven't forgotten about my word for the year - SAVOR - although I haven't posted about it in awhile. Once school started, I think I allowed the busy-ness to sweep me along from day to day and week to week and before I knew it, it was December!

I really don't want to wish my life away like that. To look back and wonder where the time went and if I did anything of consequence with the time that I had.

A friend was telling me recently that people in America often plan vacations and they know what they are going to do for every minute they are gone. When they get back, they are miserable. This thing that consumed them in the planning stage for months was over in a blink of an eye.

This I know from experience - it's like planning a wedding. A year of decisions and dreams over in 30 minutes. POOF!

But the thing that caught my attention as I listened to this friend was that even while we are ON the vacation, we wish ourselves into the next step of the trip rather than enjoy the moment we are in.

Ouch!

It's so true. I was so sure my Thanksgiving break would be spent reading and stitching and just "being." But once it was done, I couldn't really tell you what I did with my time. I did not have a stack of books to review for my blog, because I didn't read that much. I did finish a stitching project and I got some Christmas shopping done. But I was often distracted by what was coming, the coming week of school or something else.

I think my best moment of the 5 days I had off from school (5 days! They zoomed by!) was laying on the floor, playing cards with my son. We played only one game, but it was in a moment where I wasn't trying to get something else done or distracted about whatever was coming next. We just played. It was one of the highlights of the long weekend for me. I hope I can build more moments in like that one in the future.

SAVOR: Family Time

A couple weeks ago I was looking at this online and I thought the format would make a great "About Me" scrapbook page. So I chose my categories and worked on my answers for an afternoon. I really enjoyed the whole process.


That night at dinner, I posed one of the questions to my husband and it snowballed into a delightful evening, sitting around the dinner table, talking to one another about the things we liked - favorite characters (movie, book, TV), favorite movie moments, etc.


There was a moment in the middle of it when I realized this was it - this was the sort of thing I was talking about when I picked SAVOR to be my word for the year. This was the sort of moment that would be easy to speed through and forget. But I don't want to forget it. It was a perfect moment in time.

SAVOR: Sixth graders

Three years ago, I taught a group of 17 students in my son's school. I was only at the school two hours a day, four days a week, but I grew to love those kids.


This year, they are 5th and 6th graders. Next year, several of them will move on to the secondary school, and I won't see them every day like I do this year.


A couple weeks ago I was talking to them about their "Step Up Day" when they spent the morning at the secondary school getting taste of what 7th grade will be like. I told them how excited I am for each of them for the great adventure that awaits them as them move "up" from elementary school. One of the students I had three years ago piped up and said, "But we won't get to see you next year."


I told them, "Oh, I don't want to think about that right now because it will make me weep." And I will cry when they graduate. I will miss seeing them because they are growing into such wonderful young men and women. I enjoy being with them and joking around and hearing about their lives and their accomplishments. 


It was a moment that I "treasured in my heart." One I want to SAVOR this year because it means I have connected with some of my students in a new way and that is the whole point of being a teacher. 

SAVOR: Love

Since my word for the year is SAVOR, I am trying to pay more attention to moments and to the here-and-now. My mind tends to work weeks or even months ahead of today and I miss things because I am thinking about something else when life is happening right in front of me. So, I'm trying to record stories of moments I want to SAVOR. I mentioned one last week. Here is another:


Every night, once my son is ready for bed, I read a chapter or two of a book to him. This is something we have done since he was a baby and it is a ritual we enjoy as a family. Once the story is done, my husband comes in and the three of us pray together and then I sing a bedtime song and we put my son to bed. [I am trying to SAVOR this ritual because I am afraid he will grow out of it all too soon, but that's a story for another time.] Lately, we have been reading in my husband's and my bedroom, so we can stretch out together on the bed for the story. 


A couple weeks ago, as we were waiting for my husband to come back to the room for prayer, my son and I were snuggling on the bed. I kissed his head and told him that I always love him and that I hoped he knew that. He looked up at me and said, "I always know that." 


As a teenager in an angst-filled home, I sometimes wondered if my parents loved me. I knew they were proud of me and expected a lot from me, but I did wonder sometimes if they loved me or if they would still love me if I stopped meeting their expectations. Some of that is a function of adolescence, but some of it also came from not hearing many "I love yous." [They may have been said - it was an angsty time, as I mentioned - but I didn't hear or internalize them.] So I have always felt driven to let my son know that he is loved. And I hope and pray that he hears and internalizes it when we say it, because I know we say it a lot. And in this one little moment, he confirmed that he has heard and recognized our love.


A moment to SAVOR for sure.

SAVOR: Names

In some stories - fantasies and fairy tales - there's an idea that knowing someone's name gives power, either over circumstances or over the creature itself. Rumpelstiltskin for example. In real life I think there is an element of truth to this. People feel connected - feel valued - when we know and use their names. 


One of my responsibilities (joys?) at school is standing outside monitoring traffic and greeting students. Sure, when it is 20 degrees or a torrential downpour, it's not much of a joy, but most days I enjoy seeing the students and trying to be a positive part of the start of their day.


The other day, as a mom was pulling away, she said she enjoyed hearing me greet the students by name. Another joy of my position is that I see 98% of the students in the building each week in the library and all of them in the lunchroom. So I know their names. 


My first thought as she drove off was all the times I have called kids by the wrong name - and not just the identical twins, either, but calling younger brothers by the older brothers' name or just flat out saying the wrong name all together. I hate when I do that - it feels like an insult to call the student by the wrong name.


My second thought was a piece of scripture - I couldn't even remember where it came from:
"I have called you by name. You are mine."


God knows each of us by name and has called us - "summoned" us, according to the NIV (Isaiah 43:1). The whole rest of the morning this verse hung with me - and even now, a week later, it is still roaming around in the back of my head. Every time I call one of my students by name - greet them, congratulate them on something they have done or tell them I'm glad they are back after an illness, I think of how it might feel to each student to be known by name - not just one in a crowd. I think of how God cares enough about us to call us by name. 


This idea of names and this moment with this mom are things I want to SAVOR this year.

One Word - Update

At the beginning of the year I planned to use "Finish" as my word for the year, but a couple weeks in I decided to change it to "Savor."


This has been a timely word - one I have thought about using before. But this year, the timing was right.


In my Stacy Julian class, Twelve, last Thursday, she talked about "everyday life," and specifically about scrapbooking it in all it's chaotic, real glory. Taking pictures and recording the details of the regular days. Pasta dinner every Monday. Laundry day. What the kitchen table looks like when you don't have company coming over.


I wrote this down from her weekly video: "Life isn't perfect. Ever. The more aware you are of the ordinary, the better you can get at appreciating it and adjusting your expectations to reality, and the more you can be satisfied."


Brilliant. 


Savor.

Twelve

In December, at a moment when I decided I needed something.... different, I saw that Stacy Julian was teaching a new class at Big Picture Classes. I was ready for something new - a new creative challenge. It wasn't cheap, and even though we are in the fourth week and I have yet to make one scrapbook page, it has been completely worthwhile.


I am loving the creative prompts and the system/process we are walking through.

I've been printing my pictures most months on schedule, but they mostly sit in their envelopes like this. But this class pushed me to at least put them in order.

There are 12 areas we are focusing on - like holidays, people, things, rituals, etc. So I have been putting ideas and pictures and other doodads in categories.


The only problem I have run into is the fact that I print pictures once a month, so I take pictures now for new layouts I want to do, but I can't do them until I print the pictures. I finally got smart and made a list by category of pages I can do in February when I have my pictures and what I can do with the pictures I have now. 


Just this bit of sorting I've done the last couple weeks has been refreshing. Maybe this weekend I'll actually get some pages made.


I'll post some more nuggets from the class later - some especially good stuff in class this week that works with my word for the year, "Savor."

Switching Gears

Dad was home with me for 5 days with hospice services before he went into a facility. After a rocky transition from the hospital to the house, he had one really good day - he was clear headed and cooperative, had his sense of humor back. We played a couple games of cribbage. He made a list of Legos he wanted to get for my son. We listened to music and sang along.

It was a great day. But I almost missed it. I had read all the materials about how the dying usually rally for a couple days to take care of business before slipping away. But what I saw was a man who was extremely week, but making plans for the next couple months. He wanted a wheelchair for going out on errands. He wanted to renew his driver's license. He wanted to talk about longer term in home care.  All I could think was, "How long will my life be on hold? How long will I need to be here, doing what I know is right, but being away from my family? What will we do when school lets out for the summer? How is this going to work?"

Thankfully I was journalling a lot those days. And I was able to remember and revisit those good moments and deal with my guilt for not truly savoring them, for not recognizing my last chance to really enjoy my father.

I thought "Finish" was going to be the right word for 2012, but I have decided to switch to "SAVOR." I want to be more intentional about moments. I tend to live in the past or the future and lose track of the moment. I don't want to wish my life away like that. I don't want to miss other precious pieces of life because I'm focused on what's next.

Choice Is a Powerful Thing.

My Sunday school class is a great group of women at various ages and stages of life. Our lives are just busy enough to keep us from really digging into a book or some other long-term study, so this month we started considering a list of questions posed by a spiritual mentor in the church.

Her one question this week led us on all sorts of great "rabbit trails" for conversation. One piece of the conversation that has stuck with me was about choices.

One person said she had been in a setting where people were asking a fairly popular life-purpose question like "What would you do with your life if there were no roadblocks - money, etc.?" She was struck by how many people mentioned things that were fairly easy to do - take up a sport, for example. Now, sure, some sports can be expensive once you buy gear and find the time and a place to participate. But if you want to learn to play tennis or take up the piano, it isn't too much of a stretch to say you could find someone to teach you, work out the costs, maybe sacrifice here or there to make it happen at some point.

I think it some times comes down to choices. If I choose to do (a) then I am choosing NOT to do (b) or (c).

I have a couple young friends who are apply to graduate schools right now. Frankly, I am jealous. I would love to go back to school, maybe get a PhD or another Master's degree. And these ladies have some freedom in where they are applying to graduate school, and therefore have some flexibility on the program they are pursuing. They can really zero in on a program and a place that can help them get where they want to go.

When I went to graduate school (many, many years ago, it seems), I applied to one school - not because I didn't want to try other options, but mainly because I had already made a more significant choice. I was getting married. My husband was going to be in a particular community because of his work. So by choosing him, I also - by default - chose my graduate school.


Sure, I would like to go back to school. And I could do it tomorrow if I really wanted to. When I start to list the reasons I'm not pursuing that, they all boil down to the fact that I have chosen to put other things first.

Last year my "one word" was choose or choice. This was a powerful word for me because it was a reminder of how much control I have in some aspects of my life. It works in this grad school situation, too. I am not a victim of circumstances that are depriving me of this dream of going back to school. I am an active participant. I have made choices to put other things first at this time in my life. I get to choose, and there is contentment in that.

2012 Is Here

Well, the tree is down, the ornaments are put away. Christmas is wrapped up for another year.


It feels good to have the house back to semi-normal. Since we are still on winter break here, the house is still in disarray. We did some cleaning around the house - my husband says the trash can has never been so full - and I am trying to get a bunch of books ready for the start of the school year in the library. So, life still feels a little unsettled.


But 2012 is here. I felt a great sense of relief when the clock said 12:00. 2011 was finished. Finally. And we survived.


I spent some time Saturday night with Michael Hyatt's "Seven Questions to Ask About Last Year." It was a good exercise for me to acknowledge the highs and lows of the year and then to put some closure on it and put it behind me. 2011 is finished. Welcome, 2012!


I've decided to use "Finish" as my word for the year. I set aside some books from my many piles of TBRs (to-be-reads) that I want to get through this year. We'll see how that goes.


Hope you had a great New Year's Eve/Day. We are looking forward to a few more days of break before heading back into the school year.

One Little Word 2012

For the last few years I have tried to find a word to focus on for the year. Some years I have really worked with my word and other years I couldn't even remember what my word was.

For 2011, I picked "choose" or "choice." This has been a theme that cropped up a lot, mostly in sentiments like "I get to choose how I respond to this crummy thing going on."

I'm already thinking about what my word might be for 2012. Here are some choices I'm toying with:

1) Create - I have not been very crafty the last few months. I haven't scrapbooked in years, but my supplies and pictures continue to pile up. I have cross stitch patterns overflowing file cabinets. I'd like to be more crafty and creative this year.

2) Finish - one of my favorite bloggers is Jon Acuff. He recently issued a challenge to focus on finishing in 2012. I am a good starter, but a poor finisher. I like the idea of making an effort to finish something in 2012.

3) Twelve - I am taking a scrapbooking class online in January called Twelve. I like the idea of planning some "twelves" for the new year - twelve projects to focus on, twelve books to read, etc. 


Will you choose a word for 2012? What word are you thinking about?

Choose Joy

Almost a year ago, I chose my word for 2011 and the word I picked was "choice." So often we feel trapped in circumstances and I wanted to remind myself that I could choose to change my circumstances - or at least choose how I was going to deal with them.


Last week I had a young student come into the library and announce to me that she wouldn't be smiling because she was just too sad. After a little conversation I found out her parents were going to be travelling and she was already missing them, before they had even left.


As class went on, I caught her starting to laugh at a book I was reading. When I pointed it out to her, she went back to frowning and didn't change her expression for the rest of the class.


Her reaction is developmentally reasonable, considering her age. But I realized that I could easily fall into the same pattern. I look back at 2011 and see all the sadness and trials and grief. Sometimes I feel like I should be more serious because of the serious sort of year it has been. But there have been plenty of joys and gifts this year, too. 


I get to choose what to focus on. So do you.


Choose joy this holiday season.

One Word

A couple weeks ago I posted about my "word of the year." The idea comes from Ali Edwards - you can go to her blog here and read about her word for 2011 and words from some of her readers. Here you can see the list of words people have submitted for 2011. My post for 2010 is here.

My word for this year - 2011 - is "choice" or "choose." It came to me in early December.

I was really struggling in a lot of ways with God and where to find God in difficult life circumstances. We had been singing in church that Sunday "God is able," and the only thing I could think was, "But is he willing?" How many people have prayed for solutions to life's difficulties and not seen them go they way they hoped?

I knew (and know) in my head that God is there through those struggles and in the alternate routes that life takes, but I was still stuck with that question and how to relate to God in that mindset.

I spent one afternoon in the pick up line at my son's school flipping through a small book of affirmations I made in April of 2009 - just looking for something. It is full of scriptures, altered to be statements of faith and, well, affirmation. This one - the last in the book - hung with me in the midst of my struggle: "I am surrounded and supported by a great cloud of witnesses so I can throw off everything that hinders me and the sin that entangles me. I choose to run with perseverance the race marked out for me. I fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith."  [Hebrews 11: 1&2]

Did you catch it? "I choose to run..." That one word changed everything for me in that moment. I can choose to be stuck or I can choose to keep walking forward, even with all of my questions. I get to choose my attitude. 

Not sure what my "project" will be to cement this word in my day to day life for 2011, but stay tuned. There will be something when inspiration strikes.


[Side note - here is a blog entry from someone else doing a word for the new year. And here is another entry at Ali's site where she posts a recording of someone reading the words - great! And another favorite blogger talks about her word here.]