It's one thing that I promised myself I would do this year...
..to live with my eyes wide open!
Now, if you know me you might understand why I had to write this goal down. I'm the kind of person who whirlwinds through life, who makes a plan & puts her heart & soul into making it come to pass.
Sure, my heart is soft & I'm a chronic people pleaser, but by the end of last year I was realising that the very people who mattered most were the ones missing out so I decided way back in January 2014 to live looking at them, being aware of them, focusing on them & not allowing my attention to be distracted by the unimportant.
It's hard, friends, for me to focus. I'm the mother who has 5 things going at once, the mother who cannot possibly listen to her child reading aloud without a project in hand. While it's helpful to be like that at times, it also means I miss out on so many of the little things.
Last Christmas I was given Ann Voskamp's Devotional Study of 1000 gifts (OK I brought it for myself, but Jud wrapped it which means I was given it ;). I loved this study with Ann's beautiful phraseology & word pictures, but what I loved even more was the section to journal my own thoughts. Can you believe that while I've been journaling here for all those years that I've never had a true journal of my own? I've always admired people who journal, but for me that would once again mean I had to slow down...and who has time for that?
Yet, it was in this journaling, this taking sometimes only moments to jot down what was on my mind that God allowed healing to begin in my heart. I've struggled with some aspects of life the past couple of years & trusting God, which was always so easy before, became difficult. I've felt my faith waiver & my heart break & sometimes the tears would cascade & the children would wonder 'why?' & the very guilt of them knowing that 'Mummy is sad' would press heavy. So at the start of 2014 I began rather hesitantly to once again count the gifts, the moments, the sounds, the smells, the hugs, the smiles ~ none of which I deserve, but each of which is given to me from a God who cares more than our human hearts can comprehend.
And I made it my goal to look for these things. In the looking it helped me to realise that God has never abandoned me, that while life isn't perfect & my plans were so very different from how my real life looks, that I am still loved. By the middle of this year I had surpassed counting the 1000 gifts & yet, I keep on; just a few a day, because I have found that joy comes not in what you possess, but in noticing the little moments.
I hope I will always remember this lesson, will always keep on counting those gifts. I hope I will keep my eyes wide open and not miss those moments, things, people that matter the most!
Have a lovely day friends
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