The Intentional Life

2018 was healing year. A year of some dark valleys, learning more about myself (not always in great ways!), and finding my way back to health. It wasn't a journey I took alone. I certainly had help from many avenues: spiritual, emotional, physical, and psychological. In the latter part of the year, as I felt the cloud lifting, I started to think more seriously about writing.  It has always been something that I have loved to do, but feel like for some time it has been stifled. For quite awhile I blamed it on busy schedules, but in hind sight, I am seeing it had more to do with depression and anxiety than anything else. So, as I seek to pick up my proverbial pen, I want to do it with intention. Not merely to just write because I like to, but to inspire others to live their best intentional life as well. In a world that is full of thing vying for our attention in all sorts of electronic forms, it can be very easy to be distracted, to be isolated, to lose sight of our goals.

As I ushered my kids out the door this morning; hugs, kisses, and assurance that each had their lunch, a thought fleeted through my mind. 1 week until Christmas. Now, when that thought comes to you, how does it make you feel? Exited? Or overwhelmed? When that thought came in my head, my first thought was of excitement.  Excited for Christmas break, for the kids and my husband, a school teacher, to be home for 2 weeks, no homework, no lunches to pack. Excited to have evenings at home together and celebrating Christmas together as a family. And then the next thought came charging through: I still have so much to prepare. I looked up the definition of prepare. Yeah, yeah, I know what the word means. But, just like reading lyrics to a song can help you better understand it, reading a definition of a well known word can bring new light. Prepare.   1 a : to make ready beforehand for some purpose, use, or activity    b : to put in a proper state of mind

For the last 7 years we have taken the money that we would have used to pay for Christmas cards, pictures, and postage and put that money towards a charity.  For the last seven years that money has gone to World Vision to buy a goat and a few chickens for a family in poverty. Last year we were able to add a cow to the mix as well, thanks to my commissions from Rodan+Fields.  This year, with the increase in commissions from my side business, we are able to purchase the chickens, goats, and cow, plus send Christmas gifts to a persecuted family in the Middle East through Voice of the Martyrs .  We aren't telling you all this so that the light can shine on us. Rather, we share this with you so that others may see the Light that inspires us to give of ourselves. We can only give because He first gave to us. "Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify YOUR FATHER in heaven." Summary of Matthew 5:16     As my frie

 Each year I find that a different set of lyrics jumps out at me like it hasn't in the past. And each year it's something I hang on to for the Christmas season, using it to help me keep focus and even learn a different perspective on this season that we think we all know so well by now. 2018 has been a healing year. A year of discovering that I wasn't as well as I thought I was and that asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, but courage. I came face to face with diagnoses that I had misconceptions about, and even the thought that 'it could never happen to me.' Medication, counseling, alternative therapy, supplements, lots of reading, reflecting, and self discovery.  Though it's been a year of healing, it has been rather tiring. Perhaps you are finding yourself in a very similar place.  But maybe you are still waiting on the healing. You're still looking for answers. Maybe you just got your answer and it's not what you hoped and it's

Ah, September. That month between the summer of August and the fall of October. You're not sure which to deliver so you mix it up all month long. You kept us hopping with Cross Country meets, family events, a business trip to New Orleans, and all of the crazy of life in between. There were some lows (the loss of a diamond) but a lot more highs. These pictures don't do the whole month justice, but it's a start. A morning road trip to go watch Owen and Hannah run their first weekend cross country meet. Of course it was a great excuse to get coffee... Hannah placed 13th, the team placed 5th All of these squash grew in our garden. The kicker: I didn't plant a single squash plant. An introvert walk: just two people walking in our own thoughts #bliss Just the usual sight in our yard these days... No, this wasn't face paint... A little Cross Country viewing in the rain... Hannah walked (ran?) away with the top 6th grad

Last Spring we got whiff of a possibility of something we've been dreaming about for quite awhile. But it's was just a whiff. Then, about 6 weeks ago Paul and I saw this uh, shall we call it, ‘opportunity,’ suddenly seem closer to reality. I don’t want to give out too many details beyond that quite yet, but let’s just say a dream that has been on our hearts for quite some time was fulfilled in this opportunity. It checked all the boxes. And it got us dreaming and planning. Something that I feel we haven’t done a lot of lately, and I really miss it. Side note: Don’t stop dreaming with your spouse. Even if it on something that may never happen, keep dreaming and planning together. This thing that came along, we knew it wasn’t a sure thing. We knew there was a large chance that it would fall through. But we dreamed anyways. We talked through plans.  While in the car. In the dark when we should have been sleeping. And in random conversations during even

August kept us running, literally and figuratively.  It started out with a hustle as Paul and I both had jobs to help with the Annual Gateway Woods Benefit Auction. Sunup to Sundown that first week of August was moving. But the Lord brought the increase, as the Auction was able to bring in over $600,000 in around 6 hours time... Auction bled into school starting, which brought structure, but also brought the need to seek our quality time over quantity time as suddenly our schedules have us going a lot of different directions.  But there were many reason to smile, to live in gratitude, and even laugh despite the rough spots. And I managed to get a few pictures in, too.  It can be kind of hard to describe, and pretty incredible all the volunteers to takes to make this come together, but this Auction amazes me year after year, as well as what God does with it. One thing I wasn't expecting to come out of this auction....three goats that now belong to us..... We had