The new years resolution

So every year I find something about myself which I would find challenging to change.  Ok so really it’s not all that challenging, like quit smoking, losing weight and things that are normal new year’s resolutions which usually get forgotten about as fast as they are said. So this year I wanted to challenge myself a little more. My first thought was of course loosing weight, but that is not really something I want to call my new years resolution because I have been doing that since before the new year ever started.  I wanted to dig deeper this year, find something with a real meaning that didn’t imply a vein desire for myself.  So in order to find my new resolution for 2012 I sat and thought for a while reflecting on 2011. I have never really sat and pondered on my past years, I just see them go by and see a new year come and go and don’t really reflect on what I have done or haven’t done.

My reflection of 2011 was actually very happy and built a little confidence in myself. I realized so much had happened in 2011. I started it off by finding out I was pregnant with Elijah and then from there started getting involved in our church. Since then I have been blessed with so many new friends that I could have never imagined finding and been blessed by growing in my spiritual walk with Christ. I’ve been excited this past year to become a part of many other peoples lives and find ways that God has blessed me through these individuals and hopefully ways that I have been able to be a blessing to them as well.  It’s been exciting this year to see my son Alex learn new things about the Bible and become openly excited about going to church and learning Bible verses and stories that will hopefully impact him the rest of his life.  It has been more than amazing to watch my husband grow spiritually as well. He is such an inspiration and a huge help on the days when I need spiritual inspiration to keep the faith and keep holding strong. It’s been so much fun this past year to sit back and watch him grow in so many ways and become the man he is and watching him change into a godly man.  He’s become my new inspiration. Of course to top it all off we gained a new cute addition to our little family, Elijah.

 I can’t say 2011 was a perfect year. There were ups and downs but as I sat and pondered about my past year I realized when I started I was clouding much of this happiness of 2011 with thoughts about things I wish I had done better, things I wish I had done at all and things that downright made me depressed that I hadn’t done correctly.  Not that I was thinking only on the negative things but I did let them cloud in on the good things which happened this past year. Then I realized what I was doing and forced myself to stop. Then I realized what my new resolution should be. Instead of focusing on bad things and letting them cloud and ruin the good things, I need to always focus on the good. I want to strive to see the good in everything not just in some things or on days when things are all going my way but I need to focus on being joyful in all things and loving people no matter what they may say or do to me. My goal in my life is to live up to God’s expectations for each day of my life that everything I say and do brings honor and glory to Him and that when I do enter heavens gates I will hear 'well done good and faithful servant.'   I figured if I was going to make a new years resolution this year that I needed to pick something that would help bring me closer to my life goal.  Philippians 4:8 says "... whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things"

I want to live up to this verse,( and so many others) but this is the one I am really striving for this year. Instead of focusing on things that I don’t like that I potentially could let wreck my day (and other peoples day) I need to think on positive things. I know if I change my way of thinking it will impact my way of acting and reacting when things aren’t going exactly how I think they should or when I look back and feel like I should have said or done something different. If I think on things that are true, noble, right, pure, and lovely then I will be focusing on good things that will form positive impacts on not only my life, but also on my husband’s life, my children’s life and the lives of all those I come in contact with. With my goal in mind to serve Christ with my fullest potential I know the first change needs to be my attitude and in order to change that I need to change the way I think.