Happy New Year!

I love new beginnings. Sometimes, it seems that starting over is the only way to get rid of the clutter and chaos that seems to accumulate no matter how I try to keep it under control. Change is an interesting - and often frustrating- process, yet it is one of my favorite aspects of life.

I have learned that sometimes change comes slowly. I don't always like to admit that, nor do I like to sit down and map out the process, especially if that process could possibly take days, weeks, months, or years to complete! I'd rather everything only take a few hours ;-)

Recently I was talking to some of my friends about organization and keeping up with chores and so on and so forth, and FLYlady (www.flylady.net) came up. I thank FLYlady for so many things, and even though I don't follow "her" routines anymore to the "t", I thank her for teaching me several very important things. The first is that it's okay for change to come slowly, bit-by-bit, over time. Changing too many things all at once sets you up to crash-and-burn over and over again, plus it's overwhelming. Change that lasts is the kind that changes you at your core: it changes your habits, your mind-set, and your entire thinking process. This kind of change comes in what FLYlady calls "baby-steps". I tend to want to take more of a "Clean-Sweep" approach to change, but this never sticks! I learned from FLYlady that I need to look at the big picture of the chaos that is my life, pick ONE thing I can change, and spend the next 30 days making a new habit and breaking an old one. Just ONE. Yes, it seems like it will take forever to get anywhere at that rate (!), but it really doesn't! I look back over the past 6 years since I met FLYlady, and I am amazed at how many things I've changed about myself and how much happier I am because of it!

The second thing that I learned from FLYlady was that "clutter" and "chaos" are heart issues. If you live in clutter and chaos on the outside, chances are there is alot of mental and emotional clutter and chaos that needs to be taken care of on the inside. It really is so true. You can work through those things in the same "baby-steps", changing one thing at a time. And you don't have to do it alone either: Proverbs 20:27 tells us that the Spirit of Yahweh will search the innermost parts of who we are and help us clear out that clutter too.

I think everybody has areas of their lives that need to change. I think that if we stop changing and growing, then we must be dead! I encourage you in this time when "resolutions" are being made and "change" is in the air, to diligently look at your self and set some goals for your life - spiritually, emotionally, physically - whatever. Not just because it's the "thing to do"at the dawn of the New Year, but because you really want to move your life in a better direction. Pick one thing at a time and change that. Once you've made a new habit, add another, and see lasting change make your life fuller and richer. Happy New Year!

Again...for the first time

Have you ever noticed that we get out of life what we put into it? Our jobs require us to give our best, our relationships ask that we give everything to them, our various duties and tasks demand our complete attention. It can be so exhausting! It seems that - sometimes - life gets in the way of life...


I remember when I was younger and full of dreams, vision, and excitement about the future, I promised myself that I would never lose these things. I vowed to "never grow up", if "growing up" meant that I must trade in my dreams for endless mundane tasks and banal duties. I had a goal, a direction for my life: I knew who I was in Christ and what He had made me for. But alas, as I entered into the world of marriage and family and being responsible for someone besides myself, I began to trade those dreams and visions (those integral parts of me that Yahweh Himself wove into the fabric of who I am) piece by piece for every-day-life. 


Through the years, from time to time, I have realized this was taking place and worked to correct my direction. Yet, after a while, I always seem to slip back into what has become my habit of busyness and - again - let go of who I really am...who I was made to be.


Why do we, in times of great distress, pressure, or hardship, let go of the one thing that will bring us peace? Don't we know that the things our heart longs for, the things that make us come alive, are the very things that He placed in us to do? These are the things He has gifted us with, to use for His glory and for our wholeness. He has already made the path; all we have to do is walk in it.


"Our inner selves wait [earnestly] for the Lord; He is our Help and our Shield. For in Him does our heart rejoice, because we have trusted (relied on and been confident in) His Holy Name. Let Your mercy and loving-kindness be upon us, in proportion to our wanting and hoping for You." Psalm 33:20-22


In proportion to our wanting and hoping for You...

Midnight Musing

I have so many things running through my head all the time! I want to share the things I learn with people because- if you are wise- you can learn from other people's experiences and mistakes. I want my life to count for something. I want to touch other people's lives and impact the world around me.

I truly hope that the things I write will do just that: impact the world around me. Welcome to Exoteric Meditation!

lydia k