My word of the year: simplify.
It seems to be the "thing" to choose a theme, a word, a strong word, to center your year around. It was a thing last year, too, and while I picked one, I honestly didn't remember it a few weeks later, and never really invested myself, or maybe even understood, the idea behind the gesture.
This year my word found me. A few days ago, I was frantically working on my mom's group newsletter [aka I had forgotten about it and the fact that we had no ink and still managed to procrastinate and not get it done until 9 pm] and I wrote about how many of the resolutions swirling through my head boiled down to one thing: simplifying, simplifying our things, our schedule and even how I spend my time.
And then, at our mom's group, we had a speaker who ended up speaking straight to my heart (though he probably had no idea). Nugget actually crossed a big threshhold today and went willingly to childcare, with a smile on her face (with the full understanding that mommy would pick her up as soon as her meeting was over). Why is this important? Well, other than the fact that this is a huge step for a girl who hasn't made it through any kind of group babysitting session (except for one, but there were apparently many tears) in the past year, I was able to fully listen to the speaker. He delved into a pretty intense talk based on the transcendentals (one, good, true and beautiful) and the need for everyone (even mothers) to find them in their lives. It all came full circle when he discussed the need for silence in our lives, even/especially as mothers. I'm not quite sure yet where to find that silence, whether it be waking up before Anni in the morning, or taking the time during her quiet time to sacrifice what I want to do (laundry/facebook/work) to spend some time in the stillness in prayer, actually listening.
Either way, I think this year that word will anchor me to that need to pause for a moment and breathe, to get rid of things that are just causing clutter and stress and to focus on being truly present for our family.
Do you have a focus for your year? Did you make resolutions?
Your name caught my eye on Kristin's blog because I have a neighbor with the same unique name!
ReplyDeleteI saw this too on another blog and answered "awake" because when you have a baby who barely sleeps at night, your days are one big zombie-fest. Although probably not the most inspirational. :-)