Obtaining Mercy

Sigh…

I'm pretty sure that this blog will reveal waaaaay more information about my weird psyche that any of you ever wanted to know…so I begin this post with some trepidation. 

I'm not really worried that you won't like me after reading it; but I'm pretty sure you will be thinking, "Yep…I knew she was a bit strange!"

Heh heh heh…

Today, I was finally able to find some quiet time to work on my list of goals for the year 2012.

I have 4 typed pages, in outline form.  I know!  It's a lot.  That's one of the reasons I dragged my feet about beginning this project; but I am very glad I persevered with it. 

I'm not going to show you a picture of those pages, because I feel like it's just too personal.  I will, however, share with you the categories that I came up with.  I read 3 other blogs, to see what categories they started with.  In every case, they were not exactly what I needed for my goals.

Setting yearly goals is a very personal thing, isn't it? 

Case in point, my husband made his goals for 2012 quite clear when he hung this cartoon on the refrigerator:

You can be SURE that I included his resolution in my list of goals, as well!!!

These were my categories:

1. Personal
2. Residential

I found that everything else fit into those two headings.  I have many subheadings under these two categories.

Under "Personal", I included the following:

1. Spiritual
2. Physical
3. Emotional
4. Marital
5. Parental
6. Familial
7. Relational
8. Ministerial
9. Recreational
10. Vocational

Under the "Residential" group, I included these subheadings:

1. Financial
2. Nutritional
3. Ornamental
4. Agricultural

I think most of those are self-explanatory, except for "ornamental".  I was really stretching there, trying to find a word that ended in "-al" that meant all the improvements I'd like to make around the house this year.  I used my thesaurus, even, to come up with that one, but I was pretty pleased when I found "ornamental"!

By the way, don't let "agricultural" conjure up visions of acres of land, tractors and grazing cattle.  My goals under that were as follows:

1. Plant two vegetable/herb plants in the spring
2. Water plants every day
3. Find organic fertilizer for plants

It's ok to start small, yes?

This is actually the first time that I have ever done such extensive goal-setting.  I will be very interested towards year's end to see how I have done.  I am really looking forward to making progress on all of them, though!

I also picked a theme for this year, and a Bible verse to go along with it.  I had to have a starting place before my ideas would start to flow.  Once the Lord gave me those, I was ready to begin.

My theme for this year is "Fear Not!", and my theme verse is the following:

Isaiah 43:1 –

"But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not:  for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine."

Well, I think I've got a pretty good foundation laid for this coming year.  I pray that I will pursue these things faithfully, as I feel the Lord has laid them out before me.  I hope, too, that I can let go of anything that might hinder me from following them. 

As always, I will keep in mind to hold my plans loosely, should the Lord decide they need rearranging at some point during the year.  In fact, I'm almost certain this list will evolve as the months pass.  Maybe I'll accomplish so many things that I have to add on others to carry me through to December of 2012!

I'd love to hear how you go about planning for the new year.  Please leave a comment and share your ideas with me.

Fear not in 2012,

Alesha