How did you start 2011?

How did you start out 2011?

This is going to be a serious post, and well it should be since I've been silent on this poor, neglected, though not forsaken blog for about 15 days now. Think about it - how was the start of 2011 for you? Starting 2011 was really rough for me - it wasn't at all what I'd hoped the start would be, and it certainly wasn't what I'd planned.

Chase and I finished 2010 in Nebraska with dear family and friends, and we couldn't have asked for a more wonderful time for Christmas. We made it through 5 different Christmas celebrations in 4 days and spent hour after blissful hour with those dearest to us. Some of you may have wondered how Christmas went for us as it's been a time of difficult change for my family in particular. But I can honestly say that we had a great time - peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable with everyone, and I can only hope that future Christmases go as smoothly.

The difficulty in entering the year 2011 started on the 30th of December. I woke up achy and absolutely miserable. My sympathetic, patient, ever-gracious in laws got to put up with the worst of it (the part where the living room floor felt more comfortable to me than the couch or the bed, and making it from the bed to the living room floor was almost more than I could manage). Then, bless my dear husband, Chase patiently packed us up that night (I get cranky when I'm sick) and took me to my mom's where I was planted on the couch for the next day.

I very much wish we would have been able to make one more round to all of our grandparents and have seen some of our friends we missed, but I'm glad I didn't share what I had with anyone else! For the big new year, Chase and I spent a mostly sleepless night in a queen bed (which it turns out is too small for us, since we're accustomed to a king bed) in a hotel in Omaha. Our early flight out on New Year's Day made for an exhausting experience that threw me into relapse for 3 days.

Consequently, I started the new year 2 weeks behind on laundry (by the time I caught up I was 3 weeks behind), with no food in my fridge because we'd just returned from 8 days in Nebraska, on an antibiotic, and missing the first day and a half of work in the new year. It was only this weekend that I got fully caught up on cleaning, laundry, putting things away, and my snot finally turned clear (a very pleasant change from the school bus yellow it had been previously).

I wanted and had planned to start the new year "ahead" of things, which is why we flew home early on Saturday, so I'd have most of Saturday and Sunday to prepare for 2011's first work week. But it was not to be. God has reasons for the way things happen, and there are always lessons to be learned. I wonder if the reason for me starting the year behind isn't just to remind me that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

I'm a planner, an organizer, the kind of person you want on your side when putting together an event, because I will anticipate every conceivable problem - except my own humanity and weakness. I wanted a day or two of serious reflection, some time for prayer, planning, goal setting, wisdom seeking. But life doesn't always permit such (as my boss would say) "long, uninterrupted blocks of time." What I am trying to learn, in light of not having the start the way I wanted it, is to adjust in the midst of life - to live life MAKING time for prayer, planning, goal setting, and wisdom seeking.

I don't know when it was I first realized it - a few years back, I guess - but I am often struck by the contrast between the urgent and the important. The important are those things that we MUST do in order to live fulfilled and complete lives as humans. We, despite our personal religious persuasion, MUST take time for reflection and goal setting, to evaluate where we've been, where we want to go, and what it will take to get there. The important things in life are big, essential, critical, and are almost always related to Truth.

Yet the urgent often supersedes the important. Urgent things like laundry, dishes, groceries, and flossing your teeth take up your time while the important things, the MOST important things lie forgotten by the way. (Ok, ok. I don't actually spend that much time flossing my teeth... my dentist wishes I'd spend much more time doing that! None the less...) Important things like quality time with your loved ones are unknowingly exchanged with urgent things like work, or TV, or even making the perfect Thanksgiving turkey. It's not that urgent things shouldn't be done - they absolutely should - but with an eye to the important things, making time for them where it's needed.

This is already long, so I'll sum up this uncharacteristically serious, picture-free blog post by saying that thanks to a number of influences since January 1, 2011, I'm dubbing this year the year of Steph MAKING time for the important things. It needs to be a lifelong habit, but that will only happen if I take it one year, one month, one week, and just one day at a time.