HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well, 2009 did not exactly start off with perfection, but it did start off with a perfect opportunity to start right in on one of my new year's resolutions. Making new year's resolutions might be unwise, like setting myself up for failure. But I still do it almost every year. Lists make sense to the ocd mind (or at least this one), so here it is:
1. Complete each ministry that God puts me in with a smile, remembering that I'm working for God voluntarily. This doesn't just mean my ministry at church (nursery), but also my ministries at home (cooking, cleaning, laundry, picking up, organizing, teaching, disciplining, playing, listening), ministries in everyday life (listening, encouraging, helping, giving), and any other ministries that God shows me (quite probably praying for many different people and situations).
2. Follow peace and be kind. This is a "rule" that I remind the kids almost every day, but I tend to ignore. That's BAD of me, and I need to change. As I tell the kids, a lot of the time following peace means shutting my mouth. This "rule" needs to extend to my mind, not just my mouth, though. Part of this resolution, then, is to NOT yell at the kids or say any unkind word at all ever. I blew it today after trying to play a board game with the kids and having to constantly say "be nice, please" even though they were ignoring me. I yelled at them. Only once in an entire day, though, really is quite an accomplishment.
3. Be positive. "Pollyanna" is one of my all-time favorite books (series of books, actually -- the year I discovered ebay, I bought every single volume of this out-of-print series!). The main character has had a rough first ten or so years of her life. Her parents were very poor, her mother died, her father died, no one really wanted her, her aunt took her in out of obligation but wasn't very nice to her. Pollyanna still kept up her "glad game," though. In every situation, no matter how bad, she found something to be glad about. If I'm faced with a situation that has not even one tiny thing to be glad about, I need to hand it over to God, let it go, and move on to something else. And that leads me to the final resolution.
4. My peace comes first. This is the same resolution that I had last year, but I didn't do very well at it. I know that the statement sounds incredibly selfish, but I don't really mean it how it probably sounds. I just mean that I need to take care of myself, no matter what anyone else says or thinks about it. Part of this resolution involves my daily schedule. I don't know how many people that I've talked to about my daily schedule have either given me strange looks or have come right out and said that I was nuts and should re-think the way I do things. My answer is "NO." I have to do what I have to do. Some of the things that I have to do to keep peace in my own mind are do ALL of the laundry every day (not seeing an empty laundry basket causes me stress), getting up as close to 5 a.m. every day as possible (I need that quiet time when everyone else is sleeping to get myself ready without interruptions, to read my Bible without interruptions, and to get the kitchen ready for the kids to come up for breakfast -- not doing these things causes me stress), do as much cleaning on a regular basis as I can make time for (I used to have a cleaning schedule -- vacuum on Monday, clean one bathroom on Tuesday, clean the other bathroom on Wednesday, dust on Thursday, change all the sheets on Saturday -- the only thing I consistently do since Seth was born, though, is sheets on Saturday. I'd like to get back to the routine, but I can't quite find the time.), clean up as much I can without getting obsessed over it, read as much as I can without cutting into "kids" time (Bible reading in the morning, school-type reading about Down syndrome in the afternoon, Bible reading and then my own entertainment reading at night). This resolution also means having the nerve to say "no" to requests that I just can't handle or don't have time for. With all of the things I've already mentioned in just this one resolution, my time is pretty much all spent. I have to sleep sometime, and I like to leave some time now and then to do fun things with the kids (like let them have friends come over) or with friends (like going to H2Oasis with Amanda, Gavin, and Seth).

Overall, 2008 wasn't too great a year, and I'm glad it's over. I made many mistakes, but I also learned many lessons. Like I wrote last time, music is important to me. It's not just entertainment, and Christian music isn't even just worship. It's also an expression or an identification of where I am, what I feel, what I'm thinking, or what I've learned at any given time. SO many songs, especially Christian songs, fit any or all of those areas right now. But the two that I'm holding on to the most for this year are "Horses" by Margaret Becker and "No Other" by Susan Ashton/Christine Dente/Margart Becker. I couldn't figure out how to put those songs on here, but those links are to the lyrics. The first is the idea of living with no regrets, a clear conscience. The second is about making sure that nothing is above God in my heart, mind, and life. In this crazy busy life, both of those goals are rather difficult to accomplish, but not impossible.