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