The Intentional Life

  Thoughts. Each time, as I sit to type up this weekly bit on intention, I come with a bit of hesitancy.  Who am I to tell you anything about intention? Who am I to speak into your life? There are so many things going on in each person's life. I feel inadequate to type something that could even possible reach each person where they are. I am inadequate. But I serve a God who is not.  So each week as I approach this writing with hesitancy, I also come boldly to my God, and ask that He speaks through me. My prayer is that the person who needs to read this this week, reads it. And for those that it falls a bit short, I pray you extend me grace and come back next week. Since this week is on thoughts, I thought that a great place to start would be with a few thoughts of my own, so there you are. A peek into this introverted, bent for perfectionism, realist mind. This past week, my daughter had a memory verse for school that stuck with me and I thought...

  Home. When we talked about creating an intentional home last time, we discussed coming up with words to describe your home, and then being intentional in helping it become just that. To help it seem more doable, let's break it up into rooms. Let's start in the bedroom, because, well, I enjoy naps. You know that feeling when you walk into a hotel room, like, a really nice hotel room?  Everything is in order, the bed is made and looks so comfy, the curtains are letting in a beautiful, filtered light. It's quiet, and you have that feel of relief as you know you have arrived at your destination. That is what I am intentionally going after when I think of my bedroom. There is so much out there demanding our attention, so much chaos and noise. A place of calm is much needed. And with the bedroom being a place of rest, this is a great space to play out that word: calm. For my bedroom, it looks like cleared off surfaces, no piles of laundry, no corners...

Heart. Here we are. The final week of February. We have been through 7 full weeks of this Intentional Living series and now we are coming back to the Heart. Did you know that 80% of New Year's Resolutions are quit by February?  Well, if you have resolved to be more intentional in 2019, then, Congratulations! You have made it further than 80%. But, if you've found yourself stumbling a bit with this whole intentional thing, let me provide a different perspective...and a question. Perhaps you are focusing on reaching goals instead of being intentional. Ask yourself, "What is my heart's intent ?" Goal making is a valuable skill; it involves envisioning a future outcome in the world or in your behavior, then planning, applying discipline, and working hard to achieve it. You organize your time and energy based on your goals; they help provide direction for your life. Committing to and visualizing those goals may assist you in your efforts, but...

Money. Even those who have plenty of it are looking for ways to obtain more of it. Even those are are content with what they have can struggle with the pull to want more in the bank. It's the number one thing that can pull our hearts away from God. It's the number one thing that couples fight about. It's the thing that causes people to lie awake at night, drives them to do illegal things, pulls content people to discontent. Not money in itself. Money is a tool. But the love of it. The love of money. The love of gaining more and more of it. The love of hoarding it and placing our safety and security in the amount that we have. It's a trap we can all fall into, in one form or another. But there is a way to combat this greed, this power that money can have over us. It's simple, but it's not always easy. Give. It. Away. I'm not talking about a dollar here or there. Though, it might have to start there. I'm talking about something r...

Time. No matter your age, weight, gender, social class, or anything else that we humans choose to divide ourselves into, there is one thing that we all have the same amount of every single day. Time. 24 hours. We all have the same amount of it, but somehow we think we have less than others, and therefore think ours is more important.  We often live like our time is more precious and can hoard it and use it for ourselves. But, what we then choose to fill that time up with is far from sacred. I'm not pointing fingers. Except back at me. This was really the main reason I took on this challenge of an intentional year. Because I was seeing that was something that can slip so easily from our time...the intentionality of it. Electronics, screens, apps. They all seem to be pulling us away with being intentional with the time we are given. I'm not bashing them as a whole, because they are tools that can be used for good. But are we using this as tools to a bett...

Your Health. This post was kind of a tough one for me to get started. Though we are all human, our bodies are so unique, and the needs of each are varying as well. Sure, we all need plenty of water, clean air, calories for energy, adequate sleep to regenerate. Those are the basics, we all know that. But it seems that is where it ends. With the amount of research and technology we have today we are finding out more and more ways to get healthy and more and more things that are making us sick. But it seems that not all of these things are effecting us equally. And not every "fix" is a cure for all.  And so, there is my hesitation. Organic or GMO. Keto or Adkins. Cleaning with vinegar or bleach. I'm sure you have your own: Fill in the blank.... Each of those come with a huge array of opinions and research. And so where do we settle? How do we know what to follow? When I find myself working through this quandary I come back to one word: Moderati...

 Relationships. I believe we were not made to be an island. We were created for community. For those of us who bend toward the introvert personality, that can make us itchy all over. People drain us. We need quiet and alone time to recharge and function. For those extroverts, community sounds fantastic - people all the time! You thrive on fellowship and surrounding yourself with humans. But, I think most us, introvert and extrovert alike, can find ourselves alone at times. Very alone. And I do not think this is good. Like I said before, we are made for community. We are made to be with others. It is with others that we learn how to be considerate, have empathy, and think outside ourselves. The Enemy likes to separate us. Likes to show us how we are all different and how very alone we are in this world. He wants us to think we are the only ones going through our problem, our pain, our struggle. Isolation. It's where the dark thoughts start to thrive and we begin to l...