Freshly written goals and whispered requests for grace …

The smell of a freshly-sharpened pencil.

A blank sheet of lined paper resting on the table.

A new planner, days all white and waiting to fill.

I love me a new beginning. 

Over dinner on December 26th, Jeff asked me what had been the highlight of my day. Hands down:

Taking down the tree and vacuuming the carpet. 

I love celebration and festivities, but there is nothing so sacred to me as the mundane. When all the laundry’s folded just so and the freezer’s full of chicken stock and a new kid’s Bible-devotional book lies waiting for us to devour. I color-coded all of Dutch’s new Legos and stretched those fresh sheets across our bed and stowed the Christmas decor and crossed off that last day — 31st — and tore the sheet right out. There underneath lay a new glorious page:

January 2012.

I don’t know what this year will hold. Every single day is a gift, and I’m often reminded of dear family and friends around me passing from this life to the next.  I know this world is broken down and aching and we pass through it bruised and beaten. I feel it, too.

But God is good and does good. And so we can always look forward with hope and smile upon the future knowing our God is good and does good. So as I move into this new year, I’ll look forward a bit, as best as I know how, and ask God to direct both my goals and my requests for grace.  I won’t share them all, but here’s a glimpse of the goals:

Personal:

1. Read through the Bible again and establish set times of prayer during the day. (This time instead of just straight through I’m reading 3 OT and 1 NT each day. That way I get Jesus every day!)

2. Read through my nightstand stack. (Will share that soon!)

Physical:

1. Run Hood-to-Coast with Jeff. (This may end up being a regret 🙂

Marriage & Family:

1. Read The Meaning of Marriage (Tim Keller) together as a couple.

2. Read the rest of the Narnia books aloud to our kids.

3. Create memories enjoying the generous gift we were given for a free week in Maui.

Goals for Dutch & Heidi:

1. Heidi learn all the Letter Lesson verses.

2. Do our daily work and learning routine: (Make bed, get dressed, brush teeth, put breakfast dishes in the sink, take out the trash, write a note or sentence/story, Dutch read four books, recite verses, read from Big Book of Knowledge, do Bible devotional story/activity.)

—

I’m yawning a little looking at this list. There isn’t anything very remarkable, in fact it’s borderline mundane.

That’s just right. 

I pray to live this year–another year of ordinary Tuesdays and Wednesdays and early mornings and rainy afternoons–pounding nails into the right places. Establishing sacred habits one moment, one choice, at a time. And sewn through this list I’m stitching the reminder about living a life of no regrets.  So here’s another category:

These are my whispered requests for grace, resolutions of the heart …

• Resolved: Ask God what He thinks of my parenting decisions and children’s behavior before wondering what the rest of the world thinks.
• Resolved: Speak of Jesus even when I’m scared to death of looking foolish or floundering or flubbing everything up.
• Resolved: To rest and play one day each week.
• Resolved: To love, honor, and respect my man through his love language.
• Resolved: To speak to my children with words of life, giving correction out of hope not exasperation, discipline out of love not disappointment.
• Resolved: To abide in the extravagant love and grace of Jesus Christ who suffered and died so He could be with me.

Can’t cross those off as attained or measure them at all, but I believe by faith that God gives us the desires of our hearts. He plants them there and then He fulfills them. So I ask Him for these things, as gifts, this year.

And I believe He will give them, because of grace. 

{What are your goals for 2012? And what are the desires of your heart, the gifts of grace you’re requesting from the Father in 2012? Thanks for reading.}