A friend from The Old Schoolhouse Crew, Marcy from Ben and Me,  asked if crew members would share one word to sum up our hopes and dreams for the coming year.  I gladly accepted this challenge.  

            

            My “word of the year” for 2013 is: 

           FIT


According to dictionary.reference.com  FIT is both an adjective, a verb, and a noun.  It gives about over 50 definitions this word can mean and be used, but here are a few of my favorite.

1. To be prepared or ready.
2. To be in good health.
3. To equip.
4. A song, ballad, or story.
5. To be suitable for service.


Two verses in scripture that stand out to me are:

Matthew 10:38

And unless you are willing to take up your cross and come with me, you are not fit to be my disciples.

2 Thessalonians 1:5

All of this shows that God judges fairly and that he is making you fit to share in his kingdom for which you are suffering.

                                    Fit 
                        is the root word
   of one of my resolutions / goals for the new year: 
                            Family Fitness. 

        

I am preparing myself and my family to be fit for service for the kingdom of heaven.  I am working on our physical activities and nutrition to be fit in health and stature.  I am equipping my family to be fit for the journey of this year.  I am telling the story of our life in a song that is sung to my children and written on the pages of our hearts, and jotted down here to share and encourage everyone who stops by.

My desire is for each of my family members, including myself, to be FIT, and in a condition of physical, mental, social, and spiritual well being in which we are healthy, physically sound, spiritually sound, and involved in positive relationships, beneficial activities, and good nutrition.

I am praying for the Lord’s guidance and for him to equip myself and my family to reach a state of fitness that he is pleased with.  We can not do it on our own.  We must first accept his son Jesus as our savior, and forgiveness of our sins.  Then we can walk with the Lord, read and understand his word, talk with him through prayer, worship him with spirit and with truth, praise him with song and thanksgiving, and become more like him through living in a relationship with him.

John 3:15-18
 

“Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life.  God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.  God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them!  No one who has faith in God’s Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn’t have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God’s only Son”.

Question: What WORD would sum up your hopes and dreams for the coming year?  Please leave a comment below.  Thank you!


This post will be linked up with:
Raising Homemakers
Sharing Time
Far Above Rubies
New Years Resolutions

                                        And linking up with BEN and ME
                                        

Do you make New Years Resolutions?  If so, do you write them down and put them pen to paper?  Or are you going to keep them off the paper, just in case they don’t materialize?  Do you skip making resolutions at the start of the year?

In the past, I have done both.  So silly I guess, but I thought for years I had to make a big list of goals.  Then I went through a stage where I totally disagreed with this practice and refused to make “special” New Years Resolutions.  For the past couple of years I even decided to stay away from certain resolutions that I thought I might fail at, such as weight loss.

But now I find myself somewhere in the middle.  I want to have goals for the new year ahead, but I don’t want to dwell on them or let them stifle my freedom and creativity either.  I need basic goals to keep me balanced and moving ahead with purpose, but flexible enough to allow for change when needed.

One specific area of focus for me this year is the fitness and wellbeing of our family unit.  I am going to include the health of the family unit in specific areas such as: physical, nutritional, spiritual, financial, social, relational, life skills, educational, and more.

I came across this great suggestion to boil the resolutions down into 5 simple categories (faith, family, fitness, finances, and friends) and I thought this was brilliant!
I CAN BE SUCCESSFUL in these areas with a simple, flexible statement of what I want to achieve this year.

Here are my New Year Resolutions 2013

Faith:  Encourage activities that promote faith.  Have daily bible study and discussions.  Keep a prayer and praise journal.

Family: Encourage activities that promote family togetherness.

Fitness:  Create a family fitness plan. 

Finances:  Create a new family budget for this year that includes healthy eating, family activities, giving and sharing with others, supporting ministry, reducing debt, and savings.

Friends: Spend time connecting with friends.

I plan to flesh these resolutions out over the next few weeks and develop manageable goals to achieve each of these this year.

This post will be linked up with:
Above Rubies
Raising Homemakers
Sharing Time

Question:
What are your New Year’s resolutions? 

Please leave a comment below, or link up your stories during the month of January and share your resolutions with us.  Thank you.

Be sure to link back here, or grab our button so others can find us.  Thanks!

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         Happy 
      New Year!
        
                        

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  Wishing you a BLESSED year 2013!