Onward and Upward!

New Year Fresh Starts

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Actually, I do. I resolve not to make resolutions. Does that count? {vbg} But we have so many Big New Things gathering pace this year that It would be sensible for me to make note of some of the ways I hope to be able to cope with them. Desperate times call for desperate housewives.

One of the ways I hope (notice I said 'hope', not 'resolve' - you can't FAIL if you hope!) to keep from falling into despair this year, as change and activity threaten to overwhelm my family, is to pray effectively and the other is to organise myself and my household effectively.

I don't do regular, organised Quiet Times, prayer journals or anything patterned or scheduled. I've tried, over and over and I just can't do it. I've felt guilty about it and after years of THAT, I've come to the conclusion that some of us just weren't meant to work that way.

God helped me, just after Christmas, by giving me a new pattern, one which has success written all over it{g}, of praying effectively. As I wake in the morning and as I fall asleep each evening, I'm to pray specifically for each member of my family, around the words God Himself gave me for them. For Grace, I'm to pray around the word Wisdom. For Jack, I'm to pray around the word Love and for my husband, I'm to pray around the word Strength. Yes, I will be pleading for those things for each of them, but I sense that, as time goes on, the meaning of those words in relation to those people will change. I don't know how. It will be interesting to see how that develops.

I know that because God clearly spoke those words to me for each of my family as I woke up one morning over Christmas, that I will pray more and that this is what He wants from me. I'm excited to be praying for the things He wants for my family and that I don't need to be worrying about what I've forgotten to pray for and that I don't need to be feeling guilty about not praying enough. His will, made blindingly clear. Excellent.

The other way I hope to keep from disappearing down a maelstrom of household incompetence is to get organised again. I've done it before, I just fall off the wagon a lot! {g} So, it's back to menu planning, back to rotating weeks of plans, to a really good notebook system, to using my diary properly for scheduling, to keeping on top of the finances by planning expenditure and so on. It all went downhill last year when I was ill pretty much all of last Autumn. But it HAS to be under control this year. We have too much happening and too much riding on my key role as housewife/linchpin to not succeed at this. Hey I'm 52 this year! If I can't do it this year, I might as well give up and go home. As it were. LOL!