Strivings

I live very much in the present. I have good intentions and expectations, but I'm often stymied by tunnel vision. I forget to stop and look around. I realize I do this in my literal walk as well. I watch each step as I climb a set of stairs. When Alan and I walk at Radnor Lake, I'm more likely to be watching my feet and looking out for roots than to be looking at the beauty and grandeur around me. If it weren't for Alan I'd miss all the deer and turkeys and chipmunks and mushrooms. When I first realized this, it didn't occur to me that I do the same thing in my attitude toward life. I'm so busy looking out for potential pitfalls that I forget to lift up my head and look at the beauty I'm dwelling in already.

I read a lot of blogs. Probably too many, but they have given me much fodder for thought and growth. Yet even when reading emily wierenga or Ann Voskamp, I find myself wishing I had known these things long ago so I could have avoided so many mistakes. "If onlys" will drive you right over the cliff. 

Last night, over a year since asking for and receiving One Thousand Gifts, I finally picked it up to read. And right there in the opening pages I found things:
"His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory" (1 Cor. 2:7 NEB -- italics mine). There it was. My word for the year -- PURPOSE.
And then this:
". . . maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds."

My story, my pace, my approach . . . maybe they are all part and parcel of God's secret purpose for ME. And constantly reproving and reproaching myself, maybe that's no different than reproving and reproaching God and His plan.

And so I am reminded again of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol having his epiphany to "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." And I pray that in living with purpose I too will allow for such strivings.

One Word

purpose -- 1. the reason for which something exists or is done, made, used,etc. 2. an intended or desired result; end; aim; goal. 3. determination; resoluteness. 4. the subject in hand; the point at issue.

The word first popped up here. Later I saw a tweet with #oneword365 and it peaked my curiosity. So I went to the site, OneWord365.com and read. And I knew immediately what my word would be.

Purpose. I've been trying to find my purpose all my life. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? What's the point? I've written about intentionality before, and it's all tied up in the same thing. I don't want to just be a paper bag blown about by the wind. I want a goal, an aim, intention -- a purpose. I want to live on purpose, not accidentally.

So that's my word for this year. My hope is that with that as my focus, I will see more clearly what God wants me to see. I will be able to ignore the blinders and distractions that get in my way. As Scrooge says at the end of A Christmas Carol, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." I don't want to shut out the lessons I am meant to be taught.

I want to live this year with purpose.

linking up with One Word and Writer's Workshop