New Years "Revulsions" (as Abby slipped and called them!)

LOVE making lists!  To do lists, Goals, budgets, calenders, grocery lists...you name it, I love doing that stuff! Writing new year's goals is like a fresh start.


As I reflected  on 2013, I determined that it was a year of "overs".  As in....over ate, over spent on earthly junk, over indulged, over scheduled, over worked, over stimulated by electronics.  These "overs" weren't just about me, but really I think our whole family had a year of "overs". We let the year go buy without any time spent serving others less fortunate than ourselves.  We made no dent in our emergency savings (and do we need that badly...our how water heater died this week). We ate lots of junk food.  The kids spent too much time being shuttled back and forth to activities and sitting in front of brain-sucking electronics, and Lord knows, I over-worried!

I prayed about what the Lord wants for us in 2014.  He has given me 2 words:  love and less
The goals for this year for myself pertaining to love are:   love my husband better and more demonstrative, love my children more affectionately and edify them with my words, love my children even when their behaviors irritate me (and believe me, there are plenty of times that happens), grow in love for the lost and seek opportunities to share Christ, love the poor and orphan in action- not just lip-service or donating a little cash, love my church family and pray for our leader, love my health and stop eating pounds of processed crapola that will turn to fat and clog my arteries. I already accomplished one goal yesterday.  I wrote Hudson's foster mother and will mail it tomorrow.
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. I John 4:12

My goals for less are:  spend less time watching tv or on the computer(includes the kids and us parents) and more time playing outside, eat less hydrogenated fats and refined sugars, spend less money on first-world "musts haves" (our monthly bill for electronics and media-related products could sponsor 11 children through Compassion International that would provide food and education all month....hold on, I may vomit on our own selfish and lavish Suburban American waste...we've become the same kind of people I have complained and preached against for years), spend less time driving all over North Texas to entertain myself and the kids and more time doing things that are useful...like reading books, spend less brain energy worrying, spend less time comparing myself to people around me, spend less energy nagging my husband, spend less brain and heart energy worrying about things I can't control.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [m]wealth.

For this reason I say to you, [n]do not be worried about your [o]life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the [p]air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by being worried can add a single [q]hour to his [r]life? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But [s]seek first [t]His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be [u]added to you.

34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will [v]care for itself. [w]Each day has enough trouble of its own".  Matthew 6:24-35