Happy New Year--Make It a Good One!

Happy New Year!  I always enjoy January and its chance for new beginnings.  We have a brand new year and blank calendar pages waiting to be filled.
As much as I enjoy Christmas and celebrating our Savior's birth, I breathe a sigh of relief in January.  I make some hot tea, listen to the Christmas music and gaze at the lights on the tree one more time and spend time alone with Jesus reflecting on the past year.  It's sort of a personal mini-retreat.  I get out a new calendar but take the time to look through my old one, recalling special events of our year.  There were days of happiness, joy, sorrow, regret, gratitude, and just plain living.  Highlights and lowlights of riding around on planet Earth for one more year.  I thank God for all His mercies and blessings to me and mine, and ask forgiveness for the times I messed up as His child and representative.
My Dad and his father before him kept a little pocket notebook in their shirt pocket and wrote a summary of each day's events.  Now that they're gone, their notebooks are a little sample of the things they found worth noting each day.  In one of my Dad's notebooks, we find  he sold so many bushels of wheat at a certain price, we got a quarter inch of rain and a certain cow had a calf.  Every now and then he mentioned me or my sister, family activities, or world events.  He would refer to his notebooks to look something up when trying to recall events.  I washed out as a notebook keeper, but do write events on my calendar.  Over the years, I have purchased many attractive journals to try to get myself to be a journaler...without much success.  My son and daughter have kept journals for years, so maybe the journaling gene skipped me and went to them.I have kept prayer journals for years, however, and it is so amazing to look back and see how God has answered.
With a New Year, I have a chance to begin again keeping track of daily events and even more prayers and Bible study.  After looking back at 2012 and it's victories and defeats in my faith and actions, I pray for the new year.  I ask God to show me those areas (numerous!) where I need to improve.
Each year I try to set at least one goal in these areas:  spiritual, intellectual, physical and social. The thing about setting goals is making them doable, which usually means taking small steps or making small changes.
For instance,  here are some I'm working on for 2013-
Spiritual-journaling!!  I need to keep track of my Bible reading and pour out my love, gratitude, and feelings to God.  Memorizing Bible verses, one a week is a good goal  Being involved in a Bible study also helps with spiritual growth. I want to get serious about a gratitude journal like Ann Voskamp and her One Thousand gifts journals.
Intellectual-learn something new!  Last year I took 4 hours of college credit to renew my teaching certificate and I enjoyed it tremendously.  Being with fellow teachers and keeping up with new methods of teaching reading and phonics and learning strategies re-energized me.  I read that learning something new is as beneficial as taking a vacation in that it refreshes you in a similar way.
Physical--get healthier!!  Drink more water.  Eat an extra serving of vegetables a day.  Move more!!  I read that if you get up during commercials in 2 hours of television viewing and walk around or in place, it can add hundreds of steps to your activity level.  ( Have you ever worn a pedometer?  For good health and weight loss, you need to get 10,000 steps each day--most of us fall woefully short!)  Get a friend and get outside and walk.  Make it a prayer walk and pray for people as you pass by their homes or schools and businesses.    
Social-establishing and improving your relationships with others. For some people, setting a social goal may seem unnecessary. "I'm plenty social", you say.  So..are you making new friends or just keeping the old ones?  Are your friendships going deeper or have you stalled out?  Do you listen more than talk?  Do you push yourself to practice hospitality or to make others feel welcome, even people different from yourself?
Do you ever speak of spiritual things to your friends?  My dear sister-in-law, Mattie, is a master at this.  When we're together, Mattie dispenses with the shallow chitchat and goes directly to "What has God been teaching you lately?"  It's good to have friends who keep us honest and accountable!!
I also try to analyze our home and family life and ask God to help me change anything that would make life easier, simpler, and free up time, energy and money to spend in other ways instead of wasting resources because I don't manage them well.  This leads me to declutter our home again and look at ways to improve the way we do things in order to save time, money or energy.
Whew..looking ahead to 2013, I definitely have some issues to tackle.  Here's the thing, though--without any goals, we drift.  If we want to end up in a different place in some area of our life, we're going to have to do something different!  With God's help, we can make small changes and in another year, we'll be a lot closer to our goal.
Have a mini-retreat, get some coffee or tea, grab your Bible and a calendar or a journal and pray for God to lead and keep you and yours in the days ahead.  Pray to be a blessing, an instrument to further His kingdom here on earth.  Take some time to say good-bye to last year and welcome the new one.  Rededicate your time, energy and money to serving God and others.  Choose a goal in the spiritual, physical, intellectual and social areas and work toward it by making small changes. Thank God for the chance for a fresh start!