Making Goals with Open Hands

It’s the new year and some people might be brave enough to make resolutions this year.

With everything going crazy in 2020, I know many people are more hesitant to make a list, plan, etc. And that’s certainly understandable! There were many things on my own calendar that were cancelled in the chaos of last year.

However, I don’t think all planning for 2021 needs to go up in smoke. Maybe we just need to think about it a different way. Go into the year with palms up, hands open, ready to change and modify.

I will say it again for those who missed it: I’m a planner!! Crossing things out of my agenda last March-July was hard. Especially since I love using fancy pens and markers {I would put the winking emoji here if I could}. Making plans just to have them cancelled, everything up in the air and unknown and uncontrollable was very difficult for me. And basically the entire year I was afraid to tell plans to my kids or write them with those fancy pens because they so often weren’t able to happen.

But the frustrations of 2020 will not keep me from thinking about and dreaming up goals for 2021. But I have a different mindset about the point of goals and the benefit of making them.

As I’m thinking through goals for this year and waiting with anticipation and trepidation for what it holds, here’s the process I’m following.

• Prayer. Before I write anything I want to do/accomplish, I ask God to convict me of areas I need to grow in, bring what he wills in my path, and help me seek humility above all else. This isn’t MY year. This isn’t MY life. It’s God’s, and I want to be right where he would have me.

• Write. This can be a list of things to accomplish in different categories (spiritual, health, family, bucket list, etc.), it can be a long journal entry of what I’m praying for this year, it can be a diagram of what to do/when/how. The main thing is I get it on paper! Then I decide what I can realistically do in a year with my current life (family, church, homeschooling, working, housework…).

• Talk. Tommy and I chat about projects we can tackle together, trips we want to make, things we would like to do. I also ask the kids. Usually their suggestions are a little unrealistic (visit Norway and Sweden, recreate dinosaur DNA, build an American Girl room in our house….) but they also request things like camping trips, playdates, sleepovers with Grammy or Nana. Family and memories are so important to me and I want to make room for those too!

I know goal planning isn’t for everyone. I’m not super strict with myself but I do like to sit and think and consider how God would have me use my abilities and time and energy throughout the year. Of course, those things can all change. Maybe we’ll be given extra time {think quarantine} or maybe we’ll walk through a trial with illness or family and not get anything from our list marked off.

For me, it’s not just about the end goal or accomplishing my list — although I love checking things off lists! It’s also about how God grows me and the things I learn through the events of the year. I certainly learned patience and trust, waiting for God’s time and will, and my need for rest and fellowship in 2020. None of those were things on MY to-do for last year but Gods knows best.

Going into 2021, I’m praying, writing, and talking about goals and desires and dreams. But I’m holding them in open, out stretched hands and I might start using a pencil.

Photo by Hayley Maxwell on Unsplash

Don't be Discouraged

Waiting is hard.

It often breeds discouragement as we believe the longer we have to wait for something, the less likely it is we will succeed. This can be true for waiting for a husband, a baby, the perfect job offer, and the list goes on. Waiting and discouragement thread through life in many ways.

I love reading books. Although I read a lot of non fiction, I love a good novel too. I’ve come to realize, however, that I love getting to the finish but I’m not always a fan of the journey. No, I’m not one of those crazies who reads the last chapter of the book before starting the beginning. But if the journey takes too long, if the hero makes too many mistakes along the way, I’ve been known to skim a few pages. But without the struggle the climax would be less satisfying. The triumph of the hero succeeding is made more spectacular by all the obstacles he had to overcome to get there.

And so it is in reaching our goals. Often we don’t take the time to celebrate or even realize we had a small victory toward our main objective. We instead focus on what others are doing, what others are accomplishing. When we face disappointment, it’s hard to imagine rising above discouragement, working and continuing on although the odds seem stacked against us. But when we reach that goal, the joy is all the greater because of what we’ve experienced along the way. We can look back at specific moments when we could have given up. But look how we came through!!

I love hearing about people who work hard and accomplish their goal. But it has burdened my heart when I see friends and acquaintances getting book deals, opening businesses, living their dreams. I thought, “They’re moms too. When did they find time to do that? I’m so behind.” It is basically a pity party but it makes me doubt what I love doing. I wrongly measure success off of the timing that others were succeeding in. And I don’t take into account the years and tears and sacrifices that they have gone through.

I’m reading the life of David in my Bible reading. Talk about waiting!! He served the king he knew he was going to replace and hid for years from that same king! He knew what God had promised but he waited and waited. Several times David could have killed Saul and sped up the timeline {at least in human eyes}. But he wanted things to happen in God’s timing, not because he acted impatiently.

I would really love this time of quarantine to end and everything to go back to before. I would really love to be published and hold a book with my name on it in my hands. I don’t want to wait weeks or months to go to coffee with a friend. I don’t want to wait years for all my words currently sheltering in notebooks to find their way into the broader world of books. I want to know that there is an end and it will be the ending I want in the time I want.

But that thinking isn’t healthy or biblical. Instead of focusing on what we want to keep from being discouraged, when we find ourselves in the middle of something, we must turn our desires and disappointments and expectations over to God and wait for his timing.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Your Work is Not in Vain

No matter what we’ve been called to in this life, no matter how much we love it or enjoy the ministry we have to others, there will be times when we wonder why. Why is it like this? Why am I trying? Or maybe we question the whats: What difference do I make? What does it matter if I pour myself into this thing I’ve been given? Another word for this could be discouragement.

I’m ashamed to admit I get discouraged easily. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time and something I’m continually working on. I’ve seen my share of times when I made an extra effort, spent time I didn’t have, waded deep with someone into hard things and it didn’t turn out how I thought. My efforts went unnoticed and unappreciated. The person I had spent hours helping went off and did the opposite of my counsel, basically walking away from me. And I thought, “Why did I try? What did all that accomplish?”

It’s easy in our finite, limited view of life to see what’s right in front of us and completely miss what might come. The immediate attracts our attention and gets noticed. But sowing seeds for the long haul? Why? We often don’t see the benefit.

A few weeks ago it was unseasonably warm where we live and I sent my two oldest kids outside for the afternoon. I soon heard them rushing inside, the flow of water in the sink, then the slam of a door as they headed out again. This happened about three times before I wandered outside to see what was going on. With pure excitement, my son informed me they had found seeds from some kind of tree, planted them, and were now diligently pouring water by the cupful onto the ground. That night he asked if he could check on his seeds the next day.

“Do you think my seedling will be above the ground tomorrow?” he asked.

I gently reminded him it takes awhile before we see a plant blooming. And that it was still a little early for anything to start sprouting outside. A few days later, a layer of snow confirmed my warning to not get his hopes up.

We might smile — as the wise, older adults we are — but our short sightedness in life is perfectly parallel to his five year old expectations. We stop praying for something because we don’t see an answer. We get discouraged when our situation is less than ideal. We give up on people that disappoint us. We decide to not put in effort when we don’t see a payoff.

But a verse that keeps coming up in conversations, readings, and posts is Romans 12:12 —

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Here we have three things that Christians are told to practice: joy, patience, and consistency. And all of these take time! We rejoice because we have hope for the future in Christ. Patience is not something that develops overnight and especially when we want to give in, we need to wait for how the Lord will work. Finally, we are called to pray (I Thess. 5:17) and we need to approach everything with the attitude that God will answer — in His time and way. Our responsibility is to be consistent in asking Him to work.

It’s easy to believe that if we don’t see results for our work immediately we don’t need to keep trying. But just as it takes time for seeds in the garden to mature, we must continue on with what we have been called to do. It might get discouraging, the process might be hard, but we are not alone in our efforts. God gives the strength and ability for everything we do and everything we do is for Him.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

The Importance of the Journey

I love a freshly weeded flowerbed. Nothing but beautiful flowers and clean mulch, nothing sticking out where it shouldn’t be. Just beauty.

The problem is I hate weeding.

Sitting in the dirt, grabbing as close to the base as possible so I pull the root, frustration when I get a handful of weed ‘leaves’ and no root, time in the hot sun, and the knowledge that those weeds I just pulled will somehow come back next week.

I dread and put off the process while looking with envy at weed-free flowerbeds, somehow forgetting that they are weed-free because of effort on someone’s part. I want the success and satisfaction of the goal without the time and effort required to get there.

The crazy thing is my kids are the same way. My son really wants to read but he doesn’t want to learn how to sound out individual letters. My daughter wants to play songs on the piano but sighs in frustration at the simple exercises she has to practice to learn scales and fingerings. And I remind them constantly that practicing and doing the little things will result in greater things. But it takes time and energy and diligence and faithfulness. Now. Today.

I really need to apply my own peptalks to myself.

I think many of us struggle with the idea of the journey. Making the little steps now toward a bigger future goal. We want to arrive, to achieve something, to reach a goal. We want to be a certain weight or master a skill. But it’s the pesky little daily practice that proves so difficult.

Our Christian walk can have the same frustrations. We think how content we’ll be once we reach a certain point in our Christian life. We’ll be the one mentoring others, we’ll know all the encouraging Bible verses, we’ll understand all the difficult passages. But daily Bible reading? Who has time for that? Actually studying a passage instead of just skimming it? That would take too much effort. We want to skip the journey, the actual process of learning and growing. But as with all tasks, the journey is necessary to reach the end.

We can point to numerous biblical characters who had to wait through a long journey before they reached the desired goal. Sarah was barren for decades. Joseph was in prison for crimes he didn’t commit after being unfairly sold into slavery. The Israelites were forty years on a literal journey through the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land. David knew he would be king years before it happened and once he was king, life didn’t get any easier.

The important thing to remember is that when we’re in the process of learning, doing, waiting, God doesn’t leave us. He is walking the journey with us, helping us, loving us, proving himself faithful. As much as we want to skip this step in life, it is in the journey that we learn the most and see God work. If we skipped straight to the end goal, oh the blessings we would miss! The journey isn’t glamorous or always fun and it usually requires patience and consistent effort, but how much more satisfying it is in the end.

So if I were to sit down with you and we were to talk about the waiting stage you’re in and how I hate weeding and just want the results without the effort, I would smile and nod in agreement and then encourage you to keep on being faithful. Because the journey is just as important as the destination.

Photo by Nanda Green on Unsplash

When Discouragement Hits

**NOTE: I wish discouragement was something we grew out of. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with a certain age. I wrote this about a week ago and then I received some discouraging news and what I’m writing here was as true for me in last week’s disappointment as it was 20 years ago. Things happen that discourage us and seem to knock us over but the truth of God’s Word still stands. I hope this encourages you and I’m repeating these things to myself in the wake of my disappointment.**

When I was in college, I tried out for a play. It was something a little out of my comfort zone but as a speech minor, I had taken an acting class and wanted to try. Days passed but no callback. I was disappointed but proud of myself for auditioning. Several weeks later, I was talking with my voice teacher and he asked why I hadn’t responded to his email about singing in a recital he was conducting. I hadn’t gotten an email. He said the campus address he had sent it to and I immediately recognized it as the work email I had used over the summer in my campus job. It was supposed to be deleted because I wasn’t working there anymore. I ran to the computer lab and checked the email I hadn’t used in months. There was the invitation to sing in the recital and there - sent days after my audition - was a callback notice. I quickly emailed back explaining why I never made it to callbacks and apologizing. But it was too late. The cast had been set and two of my friends had received the lead women speaking roles.

Seeing that email was more disappointing than all the weeks of not knowing I had been called back. I kept thinking, “Why did they use this email instead of the one I wrote on my audition paper? Why wasn’t this email account deleted? How would I have done in callbacks? If only….”

Life is filled with disappointments. Sometimes they are small and quickly forgotten. Other times they stick with us and we rehearse over and over what went wrong, what we could have done different, if things will ever get better. And while disappointment itself isn’t wrong to experience, our attitude in the face of disappointment can be good or bad.

Usually when disappointment or discouragement strikes, it’s because things didn’t go the way we expected or hoped. We have in our mind how we want things to play out and when that doesn’t happen, we might question what brought us to that point. A lot of times disappointment comes from a result of things we can’t control. Like weather ruining our picnic plans, a missed flight changing vacation schedules, or a sudden illness canceling a fun trip. We know we can’t do anything to change our circumstances but disappointment still weighs heavy when we think about what we’re missing.

Then there’s broken friendships and missed opportunities, things we think “Maybe if…” and try to analyze what happened to bring on this struggle.

God’s people are not immune to disappointment. Isaiah and Jeremiah preached the same message again and again, waiting for the Israelites to listen. Naomi mourned her husband and sons and traveled back to her homeland with discouragement about the future surrounding her.

When we find ourselves in the midst of disappointment for whatever reason, we need to remember we are not ultimately in control of anything. Disappointment often gives way to many other emotions — anger, fear, bitterness — but we can’t let those things control us or our attitude about life. The Bible says that we are to be content {Phil. 4:11; Heb. 13:5} and we aren’t supposed to be anxious or worried {Matt. 6:34; Phil. 4:6; I Peter 5:7}. In the moment, those are difficult things to remember but focusing on God instead of ourselves brings things back into focus.

So did I overcome my disappointment at missing my chance? Yes, and I was given another opportunity the next year. I went to auditions again with no expectations but wanting to try. And I got a callback. And then a second callback. And finally an email with my name listed as the lead female character. It was so much fun to be part of the original musical production that I was cast in. And I’ve not forgotten how disappointment is sometimes the first step to something else.

Photo by Toni Lluch on Unsplash.

The Danger of What If

In this age of social media, we hear a lot of warnings about comparisons. Don't covet the image someone is posing on Instagram, don't measure your life compared to someone else. While these are good advice and worth following, there is another lesser-known game we fall into that can be just as deadly. It's the question of what if.

In our lifetime we are faced with a multitude of decisions from where to go to college to whom to marry or if you want to marry, what job to apply for, where to move, how to raise our kids if we have kids, and so on. Most of these decisions are {hopefully} made with careful thought and intention, knowing the outcome will affect any future decisions we come across.

But sometimes when our circumstances seem hard and the trials unending and we view all the other people in the world making other decisions and doing other things, we start to question if we really knew what we wanted back then.

Did I marry the right person? Where would I be if I'd taken that job? What if I hadn’t made that mistake? What if I hadn’t done that? What if I had moved there, gone to that church, learned that skill….

It's a never ending game that's pointless in every way. Not only can we never go back and make those decisions over, we are in a very real way stepping out of where we currently are and being dissatisfied with the outcome. We've all made bad choices, we've all had things we want to get another chance at. But that doesn't mean God has stopped working with where we are.

I think of David from the Old Testament. He had many choices to make, some good, some not so good. When he was the only one brave enough to stand up to Goliath {I Samuel 17:26} he showed real trust in God and made the right decision. When he married multiple women {I Samuel 18: 27; 25: 42-43} those decisions would have consequences for the remainder of his life. Then we have his sin with Bathsheba {II Samuel 11}.

Throughout his life, David had much to ‘what if’ over and decisions he probably regretted. However, many of the Psalms were written while he was in the midst of a trial. There were perhaps times when he looked back on his decisions and wondered ‘what if I had done something else.’ But we have his words in Psalm 40: 1 — “I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.”

You see, after we make a choice, God doesn’t scold us for making a wrong decision. Sometimes there are consequences to what we choose and we have to live with them. But God doesn’t leave us there, hopeless and alone because we should have chosen the other path. His character is the same. He is still with us. We’ll never know the outcome of the what ifs in our life, but that shouldn’t stop us from serving God and seeking him right now where we are.

When we are struggling and maybe regretting something from our past, we can run to God and pour our heart and cares and concerns to him. And he is faithful to hear our cry.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Writing and Waiting

A little over a year ago something amazing happened to me.

We were in the midst of putting our house up for sale, we had an offer in on a house we loved, and we had a one month old baby in addition to our two others kids. There were ministries at church, homeschooling, making family time, and trying to stay sane.

I hadn’t started this blog because writing seemed like a far off dream. Definitely something I couldn’t give daily time to. Then — out of the blue — I received a message from an acquaintance who I had written a few questions about writing. She was a published author and I knew her from several different circles but our correspondence had been limited. She asked in her message if I would be willing to contribute a few devotionals for an upcoming publication meant to specifically encourage moms. And she needed them by the end of the month.

I showed the message to Tommy, too stunned to reply. Even though the schedule was packed, he said he thought I should do it. He volunteered to help out with whatever I needed in the coming month. I took a few breaths and wrote back asking for more information and that I was very interested.

Over the next few days, I thought about what encouraged me as a mom and how it related to gospel truth. I wrote using my phone in every small moment I could grab. I dictated ideas and Bible verses while packing boxes. With Tommy’s help and lots of grace I was able to write two devotionals and get them sent in on time. Just in time for Mother’s Day last year, the booklet was published and we moved into our new home.

Then a busy summer hit, and we started homeschool in the fall and life just took off again. And my writing once again took a backseat to everything else in life. In our new home, I have a beautiful office in a spare bedroom and a few times a week I carve out enough time to write a blog post, pursue a new idea, journal some thoughts.

Although my efforts seem small, my goal is to keep going. To keep doing what I love and feel called to. Sometimes we look at what others are doing and imagine the joy of being there ourselves. But it seems impossible because of different circumstances and life stages. We wonder when this will pass and we can pursue the next thing — the thing we really want. I’ve had those moments. The wondering when my baby will sleep through the night so I have energy to wake up early and get things done before the kids join me. The waiting as I query publishers about a project I’ve been working on for years.

But the truth I’ve come to recognize is that even when we are in seasons of waiting and it looks like our passions will remain dormant forever, we are still growing and learning. And in that personal growth our passions and desires grow too. I might not be able to sit and write as often as I want but when I get the chance, my fingers have learned to fly! The number of words I can pour onto a page in an hour is much greater than it used to be. My experiences have changed what I write and the tone I use. Feedback from editors on the few projects I’ve done has sharpened my skills and helped me recognize errors I’m prone to.

The waiting is not wasted time. The writing I scribble into journals and dictate into my phone on walks is not wasted. It is all used to teach me and grow me and change me so that when the time is right, I’ll be better equipped to use my passion for God.

Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash

When Waiting Stretches On

Waiting is something no one can avoid. No  matter who you are or how you plan, things don't always happen on our timetable. Even with all the conveniences of a 21st century world, our schedules and desires are still based on periods of waiting.

In some ways, our expectation of sudden gratification has made the periods of waiting more difficult. I've seen this in small measure with my children. We don't watch regular TV at our house and we don't subscribe to cable or satellite. When we watch something, it is from a streaming service or a DVD. I hadn't thought much about it until the Olympics were on last February.

My children had heard people talk about all the events and how it was fun to watch. One day at breakfast, my daughter asked if she could watch the ice skating. I replied we didn't have anything that evening so we should be able to watch it. She looked slightly annoyed and said, I meant watch it now. And so began a conversation about live TV events and our need to wait for them to broadcast.

That evening, after a whole day of waiting for ice skating to come on, we had to watch a variety of other sports first and a conversation on waiting continued. Once the long awaited ice skating started, there was more waiting in the form of commercials, another new concept for my kids. Those two weeks taught my kids much about waiting and patience.

While it was humorous to see their response to all that waiting, it made me realize what a change society has gone through in my generation. When we don't even need to wait for our TV shows to come on, instant gratification is daily at our door. Online shopping has made it so we don't have to wait until we have time to drive across town and look for a certain item. Fast shipping means we don't have to wait weeks for our purchase to arrive (there are exceptions to this but for the most part we don't have to wait over a week). Phones mean we don't have to wait to see someone to ask a question. Cell phones give us the ability to contact people away from their homes - we don't have to wait until they're off work.

The list could go on but we are now a society where waiting for everyday things is an inconvenience. But still we must wait to grow up, wait to hear about a job, wait for weddings and babies, wait for seasons to change. We never outgrow the waiting periods. And while time seems to move faster as we grow older, the waiting stays the same. It seems longest in times of trials and uncertainties. We wait for the answer and often the waiting stretches far longer than we want it to.

But waiting isn't a bad thing. Throughout the Psalms we read it is good to wait on the Lord (27:14; 31:24; 37:34; 130:5) and other passages mention waiting on the Lord's salvation (Lam. 3:26). With our limited, finite minds we can't see the end result of our waiting or know how long the waiting will last. We can't plan or control every aspect of our lives. No matter how we try, waiting is necessary in life.

But it's in the waiting that we come to fully trust and rely on God. When we don't wait for him to work or fulfill his promises, we are essentially telling him we don't trust him to work things out on our timetable or in our way. Abraham famously jumped ahead of God when he listened to Sarah and took Hagar to produce the son God had promised. But that's not what God had planned. God worked a miracle - allowing 90 year old Sarah to have a son.

A positive example is David. He waited years for God to fulfill his promise to make David king, even going so far as to refuse to kill Saul when he had the chance. Maybe that's why so many Psalms mention waiting; David knew first hand the difficulty of waiting but also the benefits of trusting God to work it out.

No matter what we are waiting for in our life we have the reassurance that God knows what is happening and how long the answer will take. And we can rest in his timing and his way.

Photo by dawid zawila on Unsplash