A Brand Spankin' New Year
Today is only the second day of 2010 and already my life feels different. Normally, the New Year has little affect on my state of mind except to make me look forward to new things and be thankful for the past year, but this year feels different already. Most likely this overwhelming sense of newness has to do with, not the changed calendar year, but the fact that I am now a college graduate, I have no job at the moment, I am healing from my fall off the horse, and I am making plans to leave the country by the middle of this coming year.
My two major goals for this year are
1. to visit my cousins in South Korea and
2. to move to SPain to teach English
Everything I am doing from now until the summer, such as getting a job and a going through a TEFL certification program, is working towards those two goals.
Besides that, these are the three "resolutions" I have for spiritual, physical and mental purposes:
1. Read my Bible every day, at least open it and read a few verses, if not a whole chapter.
Over the past two years I suddenly stopped reading it every day like I had been for 10 years and I would like to do that again because God's word is more important to my life than anything, but my habits say otherwise lately.
2. Take a walk every day or at least five "30 minutes or more" walks a week if I end up taking a dance class two days a week. Also, stretch before bed every night.
I love stretching and I was in the habit of doing it before bed from age 13-22, but for some reason I stopped being consistent with it. I was going to just say, "walk more often" but I was challenged from reading a friend's blog in which she also described wanting to walk more, but she was way more specific about how much and when she was going to do it. So, I decided I need to be more specific as well otherwise I will never do it. We might even walk together once in a while!
3. Write every day and develop habits, such as carrying a little notebook for ideas and reading more authors' work, and treat writing as a career.
My professor, Ander Monson gave this advice to me in an email: "Your job is to read and write and train yourself now that you've graduated. Is it worth your time to do so? You have to answer that question, and the way you answer it will tell you what you have within you." This was the best advice he could have ever given me, I think. I am going to print out his whole email and hang it on my wall or something because it helped me narrow down what I need to do to take writing seriously and to really soul-search and ask myself if I do have it in me to take the necessary steps. My inward answer was "yes" and "I really want to try" so that is the reason for #3.
Lord, I give you my hopes, dreams and plans for this coming year. Thank you for last year and all of the ways you astounded me along the way with your goodness. Thank you for helping me become more disciplined in certain areas last year and best of all, thank you for giving me the strength to finish my degree-May it bring glory to you-and thank you for the teachers who shared their time, knowledge and advice with me-bless them, please. For this year, 2010, Lord, I lay at your feet all of my goals and hopes and I pray that you are honored in them and that you help me develop the habits necessary to accomplish each thing-reading your word, walking, writing. And I commit to you those three resolutions and the plan to visit South Korea and live and work in Spain and I ask that you "bring them all to pass". As always, please show yourself in a new and wonderful way this year so that I may draw ever closer to you. I love you. Amen.
My two major goals for this year are
1. to visit my cousins in South Korea and
2. to move to SPain to teach English
Everything I am doing from now until the summer, such as getting a job and a going through a TEFL certification program, is working towards those two goals.
Besides that, these are the three "resolutions" I have for spiritual, physical and mental purposes:
1. Read my Bible every day, at least open it and read a few verses, if not a whole chapter.
Over the past two years I suddenly stopped reading it every day like I had been for 10 years and I would like to do that again because God's word is more important to my life than anything, but my habits say otherwise lately.
2. Take a walk every day or at least five "30 minutes or more" walks a week if I end up taking a dance class two days a week. Also, stretch before bed every night.
I love stretching and I was in the habit of doing it before bed from age 13-22, but for some reason I stopped being consistent with it. I was going to just say, "walk more often" but I was challenged from reading a friend's blog in which she also described wanting to walk more, but she was way more specific about how much and when she was going to do it. So, I decided I need to be more specific as well otherwise I will never do it. We might even walk together once in a while!
3. Write every day and develop habits, such as carrying a little notebook for ideas and reading more authors' work, and treat writing as a career.
My professor, Ander Monson gave this advice to me in an email: "Your job is to read and write and train yourself now that you've graduated. Is it worth your time to do so? You have to answer that question, and the way you answer it will tell you what you have within you." This was the best advice he could have ever given me, I think. I am going to print out his whole email and hang it on my wall or something because it helped me narrow down what I need to do to take writing seriously and to really soul-search and ask myself if I do have it in me to take the necessary steps. My inward answer was "yes" and "I really want to try" so that is the reason for #3.
Lord, I give you my hopes, dreams and plans for this coming year. Thank you for last year and all of the ways you astounded me along the way with your goodness. Thank you for helping me become more disciplined in certain areas last year and best of all, thank you for giving me the strength to finish my degree-May it bring glory to you-and thank you for the teachers who shared their time, knowledge and advice with me-bless them, please. For this year, 2010, Lord, I lay at your feet all of my goals and hopes and I pray that you are honored in them and that you help me develop the habits necessary to accomplish each thing-reading your word, walking, writing. And I commit to you those three resolutions and the plan to visit South Korea and live and work in Spain and I ask that you "bring them all to pass". As always, please show yourself in a new and wonderful way this year so that I may draw ever closer to you. I love you. Amen.
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