It's New Year's Day 2019, and I am thinking about last year and how I DID NOT accomplish much on my goal list. Got off to a good start....and then I let other stuff get in the way.
To recap, I shared five things which sounded pretty simple that I felt would keep my life on track and allow me to achieve some modest accomplishments, as well as a record of some spiritual experiences.
WHAT REALLY TRANSPIRED
1. I've gotten to the point I can hardly stand to get ready for the day anymore. It is such a dreaded routine. And the outcome is not really satisfying when I get finished and look in the mirror. I HATE seeing that oldster staring back at me.
So, did I make it a point to get ready for the day as soon as possible after I got up? Most of the time--when I had to be somewhere at a certain time. On MY days, I loved it when I DID get ready right away. Seemed like I had more hours in the day to get things taken care of.
2. I am very aware of the Lord's hand in my life. But my problem is that I don't always write down the special experiences when that happens. Okay. Let's be honest. I rarely write them down. My ministering sister even brought me a little gratitude journal on one of her visits. That helped me for a while. I forced myself to write only a brief paragraph for each entry, then it didn't seem so overwhelming of a task. Then I misplaced the notebook when I took it to work with me. And by the time I found which safe place I had tucked it into, several of those experiences were so far gone, I couldn't have recorded them if I had taken the time to do it after I had located it.
What I did write were nice little reminders that the Lord knows me, is concerned about my needs and my happiness, but that it truly is through someone else's hand that he blesses me.
3. I'm still a die-hard list maker. Once again this last year, when I actually wrote lists, my time was magically extrapolated into a larger commodity to get housework, projects, correspondence, Primary, etc. taken care of. President Faust used to teach that he made a list every night in order of priority so he knew exactly what he needed to work on as soon as he greeted a new day. A sister I knew in Berlin made a list of only three things with the one at the top the absolute HAVE TO DO item. If she didn't get the other two finished, they rolled over and became a number one HAVE TO DO for the next day. I used to scoff at that idea because I was so into doing it all--every day. Three things sounded skimpy. Now it would be nice if I DID do three things in a day instead of maybe one or two. Can I honestly say I mastered that task again. Noooo.
4. Oh, the #52 Stories of Me sounded like such an easy way to add more to my personal/family history. I did pretty well. My goal was to do one entry a week. Then it came to the one suggestion where I was supposed to write about my childhood home. That one bowled me over. I loved my home and there was so much I wanted to write and share about it. I sat down several times to begin. Would write a paragraph or two, then erase it. (One version is actually still in drafts.) It wasn't until much later that I realized I should have written it in short little chapters. Now that would have been a doable thing. Along toward the end of the year, I looked ahead and wrote something about a couple of topics that were supposed to come much, much later in the mix. I should have just kept going doing that, skipping the My Childhood Home one until the others got done. No one said they HAD to be in the order the list was.
I'm going to give it a try again this next year and see if I can stick with it, work through the ones that bog me down. The important thing, I'm guessing, is that a person writes SOMETHING about his history.
5. Along about April I realized that I was getting casual in my scripture study and the relationship between the Lord and me just wasn't as close. I decided to reread the Book of Mormon ACAD--a chapter a day and see if that helped. It did. But my journal entries for the Book of Mormon on my phone ended up being no more than a handful of sentences. Nothing of any consequence.
Then came October General Conference when President Nelson gave the sisters four invitations to "help gather scattered Israel". The second invitation was to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year.
Now I was in a quandary. I had just finished Helaman and was into the first chapter of 3rd Nephi. Should I just continue on reading from my own charted goal? Should I start over and forget my original goal? I finally decided to do BOTH! And that was tough to do!
I had to read lots and lots of chapters every day starting at the beginning of the book for several weeks. When I finally caught up my second goal with my first goal somewhere in Ether, I just read one chapter a day--making note of all the passages which gave any indication of Christ's divinity and power like President Nelson asked us to do.
I finished that double goal on Saturday night, December 15th. I felt GOOD!
With our new manual COME FOLLOW ME for individual study, I decided to start anew with my determination to study the Book of Mormon in 2019 by pondering only a verse or a passage of scripture as it relates to the lesson material in the manual for that week. I have a little notebook I am using, so maybe I will actually make some journal notes.
So, there is my assessment. Fell short from my desired goal on every single item. Yet I profited from the little I did manage to get done.
LOOKING AHEAD
One of my perpetual goals year after year used to be read the Ensign magazine cover to cover every month. It's been a few years since I actually did that. I started reading the magazine online since I have my smart phone with me all the time. That is great, but again no notes to readily access.
I always have the current monthly copy on my bedside table. Sometimes I actually take it on my trip with me. I'm committing to reading it cover to cover every month once again. Great supplemental material for our new COME FOLLOW ME and there are always reprints of devotional addresses or specific articles written by the General Authorities.
In addition, I will keep working on the goals I set for 2018. They are actually really great goals, and there is no harm in continuing with them. They will only help me stay organized and through that effort forge a closer relationship with the Savior as I stay on the covenant path.
A NEW YEAR. A NEW OPPORTUNITY TO DO BETTER....
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