About this time last year, I decided I was going to write weekly. I had an excellent blog post about slowing down and following the pace of Jesus and reordering my life and focusing on the things that were important and then… crickets. Shockingly, I’ve somehow found myself RIGHT where I left off – frenzied, hurried, harried, and not following through on my commitment to SLOW DOWN and get my priorities right. I reread that blog post this morning, listened to the podcast that helped me take my first steps on that path, and felt some serious conviction in my soul to get back to that place (again…).
So here I am – one year later – deciding to write more
often, to say no more often, and to spend more of my time focusing on the big
rocks in my life. On this 13th day of January 2022, I am declaring
some goals, taking some steps, and recommitting myself to reordering my priorities
and my heart. As John Ortberg put it, “Hurry is not just a disordered schedule.
Hurry is a disordered heart.” It’s time to reorder my heart.
Faith – I commit to read the Bible in its entirety with my
small group in 2022. I commit to spending more time in prayer by scheduling
quiet times each day to establish habits and rhythms in my life that feel more
like breathing than holding my breath.
Fitness – I commit to race 70.3 miles on April 3. I will
commit to at least 9 workouts a week for the next 12 weeks. Once I cross the
finish line, I commit to NOT signing up for any more races in 2022 so that I
can take more time to focus on strength and addressing imbalances in my body.
Travel – I have already scheduled and booked flights to Key
West to explore a new place with my husband. I commit to at least one trip to
Maryland to be with Courtney and Billy for the biggest day of their careers. I
commit to getting my family to New Mexico at least once this year to breathe
the mountain air and to reconnect with the land.
Now that I’ve “said them out loud,” I’m committed. These
goals and ideas aren’t just hidden in the quiet places of my soul. They’re not
out there for my friends and family to see and to hold me accountable. Whether
you will or you won’t is completely irrelevant – I will and that’s what matters.
No longer do I accept 2020, a pandemic, or the weirdness that is the 20s as an
excuse for putting my goals on a backburner. It’s time to get down to brass
tacks and to make my dreams a reality.
As I conclude this
first entry of 2022, I am setting daily alarms on my phone for quiet times, I
am writing down my workouts for the next 2 weeks, and I am blocking out weekly
times to spend in front of my laptop, banging my thoughts out on the keyboard.
I will also take just a moment to remind myself who I’m writing for –for Sheri
in 6 months, for Sheri in 2023, for Sheri in 6 years. These are simple
bookmarks in my life to help me remember the things I once held dear and the thoughts
that rattled around in my head until I wrote them out and captured them for the
future. Today those thoughts just happen to be about getting myself on track to
focus on the things that fill my cup. With any amount of luck, the next entries
will have the same focus.
