Thursday, January 15, 2015

What is my legacy?

 I love the New Year!  I love thinking of new possibilities, new ideas, changing things a little, thinking of new things to do, and just the dreaminess of it all.  Can you tell I am not a realist?  I am a dreamer!  I am an optimist!  I have a confession.  If you give me paper to doodle I will soon come up with something to dream on:  a list of things that I think would be fun for them home, or a list of things I saw on Pinterest that look really fun, or how we can rearrange a room to maybe make it work better.  It's true I love it! 
 I love all the details at theme parks because it sparks imagination.  I love the start of a new school year, or a new term because of new pencils and books.  I love going to the library and getting new books to learn and dream about new things. 
 So this year as we started out the new year I didn't make any promises.  But I love having goals.  Goals like:  God show me where you can help me grow more.  Goals like - how can I rearrange my schedule a little so I can spend time doing fun things with the kids, have time for my wonderful hubby, as well as blog which I love to do! 
 Not beat yourself up kind of things because I don't believe that is what God wants from us.  I believe HE wants US!  Plain and simple!  How can we share more of ourselves with HIM?  How can we dig deeper into who HE IS?  Those are goals worth having.  They are worth taking the time to review and reflect on- daily. 
 We are in a season now where we have been in our home a year and even though there are huge repairs we have yet to face in this year we are settled.  It feels great to be settled.  To know that this home is our home- our place that we hope to raise our children and have our grandchildren over too. 

We have found a pattern of life and even though that changes often ;) we still know where everything is, where we shop, doctors, therapists, and are getting to know our neighbors. 
 We have found what works for us for home school times.  It changes a little bit sure, but we have a pattern for things that work and a routine.  We have found what works for couponing, buying in bulk, etc. for our family.  We have a routine for meeting Micheal's needs and trying to make sure he gets all that he needs. 
 We have our days out that we take seriously as a family time.  Time to relax together and enjoy the crazy fun rides, riding with different family members, waiting in line chatting and being silly, eating our picnic meals together.  We have a routine for date nights so Jason and I can have time together.  We have times of playing games and times of watching movies. 
 So my question to myself this year has been- what are we leaving behind?  What is our legacy? 
Who benefits from our legacy?  Is our legacy bringing God glory? 
Can we change what we do to give more to God?
 It is a thought process for me.  Something I want to think about a lot more.  Something that is important to me as well as our family!  I want our family to have a spiritual legacy that is worth something.  I don't want our spiritual heritage to stall out.  I want it to be thriving!  I want to pass on something that is alive and ongoing! 
 So how do you do that?  You have to be intentional!  You have to work!  And let's be honest sometimes it goes by the wayside.  Not because you want it to, but maybe your personal walk with God is in a dry place.  That's when you have to dig deeper and although that sounds nice and fluffy it doesn't always happen. 
 So back to the New Year and new beginnings.  Our church typically does some kind of fasting in the new year.  So I will be honest I have done the fasting of various things in the past, but this year we are fasting the same thing as a family! 

Now I am not sharing what we are doing right this moment because my goal isn't to have people say anything to me about it or focus on that part.  What we are focusing on- is our spiritual welfare and warfare.  It is important! 
 But just like this cute video of Michael pulling and working hard (pj day at therapy) we have to think of our goals as a family and move forward pulling to get to the goals we have!  This is serious work!  This takes intentionality and teamwork! 
 Some days those goals seem pretty simple and sometimes around here they seem like we are crawling to try to make it through the day.  What we want is to try to get to the place where our whole family can be at the next level!  Where we can all reach for that next huge step!  Where together we can say we are holding each other accountable and helping each other onward. 
 This is where we say no more everyday is ok!  This is where we say we want an extraordinary life one that pleases God!  One that may not look like everyone else's and that is ok because that is pretty much a given anyway for us ;). 
What can I say- it wouldn't happen without this man!  This man that I am so blessed to have in my life.  My one and only who knows and loves the Lord with all his heart!  Who loves me and our family and is our spiritual leader!  I am thankful that we have each other!!! 

What is your legacy?  Do you have goals for the year?  Do you feel God putting something specific on your heart?  Have you ever thought about fasting?  Just some thoughts to share- would love to hear from you if you would like :).

1 comment:

  1. About two days after Christmas we started an evening circle time because of a book I was reading about influencing others for good (The Difference You Make). Everyone has a notebook and the first thing we did was write our highlights of 2014. Then we wrote our wishlist for 2015. Places we wish we could go, things we wish we could do. The next day we wrote our actual goals for 2015. These included fitness goals--running a certain number of miles, making the next gymnastics level, spiritual goals for some--reading a certain part of the Bible, academic goals, also things to try we've been hesitant to try before and we set a goal to travel to three specific new places this year. One of my goals was also to meet with at least two other adoptive families this year on our travels. Hope that one works out. I have met three adoptive bloggy families in person now but have only had a short visit each time. I also made it a goal to read some non fiction growth books this year and have The Love Dare for Children in the line up as well as Godly Personalities, and Your Legacy (Dobson).

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