New Year's Daydreaming

Okay, I'm a little late with my New Year's resolutions. But in my defense, my husband and kids were all home and I can't do a lot of thinking with everyone running around and calling my name and shooting me with Nerf guns. I was thinking on things, just in shorts spurts and with no time to write it down.

Yesterday we started back on our normal routine. Ahhh, a moment of quiet. It's unbelievable the amount of things you can accomplish when you're alone at home. I washed and put away four loads of laundry, cleaned the house, trimmed the flowerbed out front, baked a cake, did some PTO (oops, parent volunteer) work, hung a picture, blogged, scrubbed the bathrooms (that doesn't count as cleaning, that's torture), shuttled kids, cooked supper. I somehow even snuck in a movie in the middle of the day while I ate my lunch. I'm now in love with Netflix through the Wii. I just download a movie or television series. I might actually become a fan of the Wii.

Back to resolutions. I have always been itching for a move. I am a farm girl in my heart and often feel claustrophobic with my little yard. We talk new houses, looking for land all the time. At breakfast I was reading an article on the benefits of having free-range pigs. (I never said I was normal.) Well, we had looked at a place with gorgeous land that I loved. Of course, someone else with a little more money loved it more and already has a contract on it. I was washing dished and feeling sad about the whole thing when something occurred to me.

My two biggest "problems" are exactly the same. I'm always wishing for a different house and grumbling about the disarray in the one I'm in. Things seem to pile up. I'm usually behind in what needs to be done. I don't enjoy where I'm at because I constantly think of where I could be. Don't get me wrong, I work hard to make this a very nice home for everyone else--everyone except me.

The other thing isn't my home address. It's my physical address. Me. I'm always wishing for a different body and grumbling at the wiggle and jiggle of the one I'm in. Things (okay, pounds) seem to pile up. I'm always behind (translate--nonexistent) on what needs to be done, a.k.a. exerice and eat right. I don't enjoy where I'm at because I constantly think of where I should be and what everyone else looks like and "Does this shirt hide what I'm hatin'?". This home is in a state of neglect.

Not just physically but spiritually as well. It's been a hard year with lots of curveballs and little time, but that's no excuse. I feel like a spiritual zombie. In my quiet time yesterday I prayed that I would wake up, out of this sleep-walking trance I've been in and really come alive. I was taking the kids to school and got an image in my mind. It's not just sleeping to wake up and carry on that I want to do. No, the picture was of something like the guy in Gulliver's Travels. When he wakes up and realizes he's tied down. He stands up and he's a giant. I want to wake up and be a giant. Not so others can cower in fear or "look at me, look at me". You know what I mean. God didn't call us to mediocrity or smallness. He called to great things, to stand out. If we are only willing. I'm willing. I'm standing up and shaking off the things that have tied me down and realizing that most of those ropes were of my own making.

There's my heart and my mind and my insecurities served to you on a platter. I'm changing this year. I'm not giving up on the farm. God gave me that desire and I'm not going to shelve it, just try to be a little less fussy with Him about it. What I will do is work on the houses I do live in--constructed, bodily, and spiritually. I'm not writing some list down of "I'll do these projects by this date, lose this number of pounds by bathing suit season," or so on. I will commit to live each day in His grace and for His glory and to do it fully awake and making wiser choices to be who He called me to be.

What about you?