FOCUS

This is the third year in a row that I have selected a Word of the Year.

My 2009 Word of the Year was JOY. It is still my favorite word and you will find it all over my house. One of my favorite Joy quotes is “Man is that he may have Joy not guilt trips” I remind myself that on a daily basis.

My 2010 Word of the Year was the BLOOM. I wanted to be renewed and allow myself to grow physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Originally I had selected the word Abundance for my 2011 Word of the Year. Abundance is something that I had felt a lack of in 2010, in several areas of my life.

Too many times I allowed that lack of Abundance to overwhelm me. I knew I had to change things. I had to change the way I felt about Abundance and my definition of Abundance. I thought I had my word.

But I was wrong.

In some reading I was doing last week I came across this quote by Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”

This quote made me realize abundance wasn’t my problem – my problem was that I was focusing on the wrong secret garden. Instead of focusing on the abundance I was lacking in my life I needed to focus on the abundance I did have – a wonderful family, good health, amazing friends, joy, pretty things etc.

I needed to change my focus. Thus I discovered my Word of the Year for 2011 –

Focus

Focus – a thing or place that is of greatest importance, a guiding or motivating purpose or principle.

I needed to refine and define my Focus. The focus of my life, my family, my education and even this blog. I have felt very distracted and pulled in multiple directions this last year. I have a tendency to get involved in too many “good things.” I have so many interests and things I love and want to do that I have found myself feeling fragmented and unable to focus on any one thing for any length of time. There is always something else, or a dozen something elses to distract me. I end up not doing any of them as well as I would like.

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” Tony Robbins

So here are some of the things I am going to do this year to be more focused, to improve my focus and to refine my focus:

1. Begin each morning, not at my computer reading emails, but in prayer and scripture reading. Focusing on what is really important

2. Focus on my inner core strength and balance by continuing Pilates and strength training

3. Create a specific focus for each month of the year – January’s focus will be my home and creating order. I will share each month’s Focus Journey in my new Finding Focus posts.

4. Regain my focus each Sunday by having a technology fast – no computer, no T.V. etc. and this goes for my kiddos too....we shall see how well this works

5. Improve my focus by staying diligent in school. I will get through this semester without procrastinating

6. Spend time focused on doing something I love to do - or maybe two - Serving & Crafting

7. Focus on others by asking myself each day – “What can I do to help someone else today”

“When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.” – Joel Osteen

I hope you have taken the opportunity to come up with your own Word of the Year – I’d love to know what it is.

Hope

What I Really Hope...

I've been thinking much these last couple of weeks, as the sky seems to be doing a bit of falling. I think of how higher gas and grocery prices will affect my family, of course, but I think of other things, too. I look at the failure we're seeing, on such a grand scale, and it reminds me of something much deeper. Cheaper groceries aren't the only thing I'm wishing for, where my kids are concerned:

I hope they learn that greed is not, in fact, good. That it messes with the heads of big-time CEOs all the way down to first-time homeowners, and it clouds judgment, often spectacularly so.

I hope that they pay attention in math class and learn that, whether you're a government or a regular Joe, if you spend more than you make, it never ends well.

I hope they learn that a happy family is a million times more precious than a big house.

I hope they learn that when times are good, your circumstances don't have to enslave you or define you. And that when times are bad, your circumstances don't have to enslave you or define you.

I hope they remember that America's version of "cutting back" is very different from that of the developing world.

I hope they learn that contentment is not something that accidentally happens to you, it is something you actively decide upon. And you lay hold of it, re-deciding every day that enough is actually plenty.

I hope they learn that, at the end of the day, our truest Hope will never be found in our bank accounts or our government. Insitutions sometimes fall. He doesn't.

My sweet baby boy

The other night, I wandered to my eleven-year-old son's room at bedtime.

He was settling into bed, and I lay down next to him for a few minutes. We chatted for a few minutes, my mother's heart full of quiet joy at the sweet moment with my son. My mind wandered to the days when he was a newborn, just over eight pounds. In those day, when he lay on the bed next to me, he curled into a tiny little peanut, burrowed tightly up against me. But now his long, lanky form takes up almost as much space on the bed as I do.

I thought about these things with a sigh, and I reached over and brushed my fingers across his hair.

And then he tooted.

I mean, tooted. The kind of mattress-rattling honk that almost lifted the covers a little.

And we laughed together until our sides hurt, snorting and tossing each other a high five.

I loved that little baby, but oh, how I love the young man.

Thank goodness for new days

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

I don't know about you, but tonight I needed to read that.

New every morning.

Every morning. A new big batch of God's compassions for this messed-up, funky heart of mine.

I'll sigh, and I'll rest in Him tonight. And tomorrow I'll start over.

Do not lose Heart

The Gospel according to a 7 year old

Sharing my faith with my children is one of my favorite things about being a mother. But sometimes, expressing the beauty of the Gospel to a seven-year-old boy with the attention span of a fruit fly leaves me shaking my head. The following conversation actually happened this week:

Little Man: Do people have eyeballs in Heaven?

Me: Probably not like we have them now, but we will certainly be able to see what is going on around us in Heaven.

Little Man: Do people sleep on clouds?

Me: I don't know. Maybe. The Bible doesn't tell us a whole lot of specific things about Heaven, but we know it will be a million times better than earth.

Little Man: Bad guys in jail don't go to Heaven.

Me: Well, they do if they ask God to forgive them for their sins and ask Jesus into their heart. We're all sinners, whether we're a bad guy in jail or not...

Little Man: If they don't love Jesus, they'll go to hell and the devil will keep them in a cave.

Me: Well, something like that. Do you understand how we get to Heaven?

Little Man: You die.

Me: Well, yes, but how do you get to go there when you die?

Little Man: You love Jesus.

Me: [thinking we're finally getting somewhere] Yes, you love Jesus, and you ask him to forgive you for your sins, and you invite Him to live in your heart.

Little Man: So are we happy that Jesus died on the cross?

Now, there's one for the theologians. Any takers?

Me: I'm not happy that Jesus had to suffer, but I'm sure thankful he was willing to go through that to pay for my sins.

Little Man: [Thoughtful pause]. Oh. So, are ninjas real?

And...evidently the moment has passed.

Grace in a Manger

As I sit this morning, very aware that today is December 1st and I am no where ready for the upcoming Christmas holiday, I am reminded that this season is about something extraordinary.

Christmas

Christmas is happy, Easter is hard.

At least, that's how I thought about it when I was younger.

Christmas, I thought, was the cheery holiday that evoked images of a sweet baby Jesus, a manger full of fresh-smelling hay, joyful shepherds, a glorious star and a partridge in a pear tree.

The real theological meat was diced at Easter, I believed. Easter was about blood, death, and victory won only through the harshest pain. Easter was about sanctification and propitiation and all those other "-ation" words that my pastor is supposed to explain to me.

And so, in my simple little head, Christmas was happy, Easter was hard. At Christmas, we could just sit back and not think too hard, sip our egg nog, and gaze at our happy little nativity scene in which Mary looks all clean and regal, not like a scared young teenager who just went through labor next to a cow.

That was then. I've been around the block a few times now. I don't see Christmas in quite the same way.

I look around and see homeless people and sick children and hungry nations and angry young people and bitter old people...and I wonder why on earth Someone would leave Perfection for such a dirty old planet as this?

I know we needed a Savior, and desperately, but to choose to come? To enter humanity at its dirtiest--poor parents in a barn, of all places--to endure the hardest parts of being human with only the promise of the pain of ultimate sacrifice?

Maybe Christmas isn't easy after all. Maybe it's as gritty and earthy as the darkest moment on the cross.

But OH, is it ever beautiful. It's as beautiful as any Easter sunrise, as victorious as a heavy stone pushed away from a tomb.

In one glorious, cosmic, explosive moment, the God of our Universe leapt into our messed-up world. Victory wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Hope nursing at His mother's breast.

Grace in a manger.