Praying it forward...

Now that Christmas is past, I am starting to think about goals and "resolutions" for the new year. It's time for the end of year evaluation. What did I accomplish this year? Did I finish what I started? What do I want to do in the coming year? What does He have for me to do?

Glancing at the little calendar that shows how often I blogged in December, I noticed only 4 blogs for the entire month so far! I've been blogging for over a year and started out strong with 4-5 blogs per week. But like so many things, I started with good intentions and fizzled out somewhere along the way this year.

Oh, I could give a lot of excuses (er, I mean "reasons"?) why I let the blogs slide - my family moved in and we had 11 people in the house for 4 months; my husband took a new job necessitating a move of our own; my mom became ill and passed away necessitating four 3-day trips in a one month period to take care of things for her.

Yes, it was a year full of major stressful events. These stressors not only affected my blogs, but my spiritual life as well. In some ways I am stronger because I have seen and felt the Lord's presence with me. I've had to lean hard on Him.

In other ways, I have struggled. I am a person who needs a daily routine and when those routines were interrupted or preempted, I found myself struggling to get things done. My daily devotional life suffered, my writing suffered and even the accomplishing the routine household things suffered.

Because the events of this past year were unusual and very stressful, I'm not going to beat myself up emotionally for failing to accomplish some of my goals like daily blogging, finishing my novels or promoting my book more; especially since I believe I learned a lot of other things God intended me to learn - about the importance of relationships.

It does make me think and pray more about what needs to happen in 2008. Lord, what do You want me to accomplish in the new year? What do You want to accomplish in me?

I will work hard on strengthening my prayer and quiet time routines because every other routine hinges on that. I still believe He has called me to write and will set goals toward that end like daily blogging and structured writing times to complete the projects in process.

And I will try to be open to those "surprise" lessons God brings across my path - those unexpected (sometimes stressful) challenges He springs on me that interrupt my routines but are designed to teach me the eternal lessons He views as extremely important.

So, Lord, have your way. Direct my goals and path for 2008. It promises to be a very interesting year!