A New Year Challenge

I was blessed with a very profound, beautifully written book for Christmas from my sister, called 'One Thousand Gifts' by Ann Voskamp. The message is meant to be life-changing, and one I intend to adopt for 2014!  Although it is a familiar lesson of becoming more grateful, much like Oprah Winfrey's Gratitude Journal, the challenge is to pay attention, record all the things you love, or perceive as gifts or blessings, and then to express your gratitude and thanks for them on a daily basis.  What this is meant to achieve is to make you realise that everything in your life is a blessing, whether good or bad. It has the power to change your perspective on things and erases all that whining, complaining and negativity from your life.  So much in our life we take for granted, expecting so much more than we often deserve, but when we focus our hearts on always being thankful, we will truly see God's grace in action. From a Biblical perspective, thankfulness precedes the miracles we hope for and is guaranteed to bring joy to your life. It is the means of living in the moment and experiencing a full, content life.

So in addition to wishing all my family and friends a Happy New Year, I also challenge you to start your own list of all the things you love...  I am excited to start this journey of developing the habit to become more thankful and I look forward to the joy it will bring to my life!

Christmas - Spend and Feast...

I hate this time of the year - not because I hate Christmas, but because I hate what it has become - A frantic, guilt trip of excessive present buying and the over-indulging of excessive amounts of food!  I wish Christmas could go back to being a time when it was all about spending time with family and remembering the birth of Jesus, when the presents that were given, were small, needed items or were often handmade with love.  I fear that Christmas has caused children to become greedy, 'want-some', spoilt brats, and whether it's Santa or the parents who get the thanks, it is seldom appreciated. 

Cooking the Christmas meal should be a joint affair, much like the Thanksgiving spreads we see displayed in Hollywood movies, where everyone brings a dish to contribute, thus making it less of a stressful ordeal for the host.  It should not be about how much food we should have, but possibly just a few luxury items that one doesn't normally eat.  And don't get me started on the Christmas crackers - why do we insist on buying them every year, when we know how lame the toys and jokes are.  Every year I promise myself to make some with better fillers, used with toilet roll inners and left over Christmas paper, but every year, I never do, and I doubt this year will be any different...

Sigh... If only Christmas could be more about Jesus, family, friends and fun, and less about the spend and feast!!

Consolidating your Compass & your Clock

As I prepare myself mentally for the coming New Year, I am acknowledging my problem in achieving my dreams is due to many things... The explanation of this title is bringing together where you want to go, in the limited time you have available. I know for myself, I love to procrastinate, so any tips I can learn about better time management, I'm all ears! Some of my other problems is a lack of time and a poor determination to achieve results.  David Jeremiah shared a wonderful illustration about our priorities and how to get more out of our day. He said that if you had a jar and put in all the big priorities (like God, family, friends, work etc) represented as rocks, you would have time for all the less important priorities (like entertainment, hobbies, cleaning, self etc), represented by sand.  But if you filled your day in reverse, you would find you don't have the space, hence time, for all the important things (rocks) that really do matter! So next time I find myself complaining that I have no time, or I am too busy, I intend to analyse my rocks and my sand... David also suggests carrying around a rock as a visual reminder, which I will also be doing!