THINGS THAT MATTER MOST::
Last year, I included in our annual list themes and items from the year that did not fit on a normal best of list. The type of things that were lived and not consumed. Here’s a grab bag of 2012’s things that mattered most:
**I got sidetracked on the ramblings below & ran out of time, so I will have to continue (or not) with the list. That’s the great thing about blogs….they’re not polished, but neither are most things I come across.**
a year of surviving::
I blogged just last week about some of the hard realities that this last year brought with it. I won’t rehash the underbelly of me, but suffice it to say that this last year was not a year that Ginny and I forged new ground in our marriage, we did not tackle new endeavors, not really the year for vacations- though we did geography shift a bit, we did not dive into new relationships or dissect new portions of scripture or plow new ground in any direction.
All that had to be done was all that we could manage, and I learned to let that be okay. I am inherently not comfortable with getting by and prefer to chase new ideas, dreams and directions as fast as frat boys snap pictures clutching bottles.
This year, work and family were all I could muster; I wrestled my way to contentment and perpetually asked myself, “is it enough?”. And it is. And I breathed and we worked hard to survive. Sometimes that can be the goal. We all have seasons of survival. It cannot become a lifestyle or a rut, but it can be a season and only in the acceptance of that reality does survival become something really beautiful.
Anyway….What am I trying to prove? To who? Why must my family suffer the effects of my repressed insecurity that seeks to go and do or make or conquer. I am created to do all of that, but not at all times. This was a year for focus. The year of small.
What if I love my family well at the direct cost of other relationships, job success or notoriety? Our life is a limited resource.
This is the year that I accepted that I cannot do it all and staked my life on the idea that a focused energy on the small things will pay the largest dividends over time.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. (Luke 16:10)
5 Comments
THINGS THAT MATTER MOST::
Last year, I included in our annual list themes and items from the year that did not fit on a normal best of list. The type of things that were lived and not consumed. Here’s a grab bag of 2012’s things that mattered most:
**I got sidetracked on the ramblings below & ran out of time, so I will have to continue (or not) with the list. That’s the great thing about blogs….they’re not polished, but neither are most things I come across.**
a year of surviving::
I blogged just last week about some of the hard realities that this last year brought with it. I won’t rehash the underbelly of me, but suffice it to say that this last year was not a year that Ginny and I forged new ground in our marriage, we did not tackle new endeavors, not really the year for vacations- though we did geography shift a bit, we did not dive into new relationships or dissect new portions of scripture or plow new ground in any direction.
All that had to be done was all that we could manage, and I learned to let that be okay. I am inherently not comfortable with getting by and prefer to chase new ideas, dreams and directions as fast as frat boys snap pictures clutching bottles.
This year, work and family were all I could muster; I wrestled my way to contentment and perpetually asked myself, “is it enough?”. And it is. And I breathed and we worked hard to survive. Sometimes that can be the goal. We all have seasons of survival. It cannot become a lifestyle or a rut, but it can be a season and only in the acceptance of that reality does survival become something really beautiful.
Anyway….What am I trying to prove? To who? Why must my family suffer the effects of my repressed insecurity that seeks to go and do or make or conquer. I am created to do all of that, but not at all times. This was a year for focus. The year of small.
What if I love my family well at the direct cost of other relationships, job success or notoriety? Our life is a limited resource.
This is the year that I accepted that I cannot do it all and staked my life on the idea that a focused energy on the small things will pay the largest dividends over time.
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. (Luke 16:10)
5 Comments
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on January 8, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Matt, this wisdom will sustain through countless seasons – over and over again!
Matt, this wisdom will sustain through countless seasons – over and over again!