What's ahead in 2011...?

.... to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what's ahead in the coming year. 2010 proved to be a year of big changes - some that we had anticipated and some that we had not. It's been a wonderful year, a hard year at times, a growing year (and hopefully a year of growing closer to Jesus Christ)...and there is so much more that I could say about the last 12 months if I had the time.

We don't know what to expect as we look toward 2011. We may try to plan or anticipate what's to come in the next 12 months, but I hope that at the end of this next year we can say that no matter what happened it was a year of knowing Jesus Christ more and making Him known.

I don't want to sound super spiritual or act like I have it all together - believe me, I'm not and I don't. That is the very reason that I recognize my need for Jesus more than ever. Becoming a mother this year has changed me in many ways and I praise God that one of those changes has been me recognizing how much I need Jesus. How I'm dependent on Him to mother James the way that I need to or to be the wife that Stephen needs. Since James was born, I recognize now more than ever how much more I need to know God's Word and live His word and how weak my attempts at reading and studying His Word have been. I recognize the time that I've wasted and the opportunities that I've missed. I recognize the ways that I have not lived with the freedom in Christ that is intended for His children. I recognize how I've believed lies over truth and how I've cared about the opinion of others more than that of God's. I pray that God would help me to have a deeper relationship with Him in 2011.

I have been reading SO MANY books lately. I don't usually read more than one book at a time but I am in the middle of maybe half a dozen books at the moment from books about motherhood, to parenting, to family, to spiritual warfare, and even some fiction added into the mix. One of the books that I am currently reading and that has had a profound impact on me is The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson. I highly recommend it. I am reading it and plan to reread it. I also would love to do it as a study with other moms out there at some point. One of the sections that I highlighted from a chapter called The Teaching Mother says this:

"My children long to give their hearts not to a list of rules but to a living, loving, vibrant Person - a God who is truly worthy of praise and their life's devotion. They will encounter that God in the pages of Scripture, but they will come to know him even more intimately in the lives of those who love him. In a sense, I give my children their best theological education by seeking to really know and love God in my own life and living my life out before my children. Children will read our lives as the most important book they will ever know. How important it is that we allow our hearts to be confronted by his reality daily so that they may see his reality in our lives."

How convicting! I don't just want James to know my love for him but to know Jesus love for him as I let Scripture change me from the inside out and then live it out before him. 

This year, in 2011, I am committing to spending time daily in God's Word. I am also committing to memorize Scripture in 2011 (something that I have not done a good job of in the past). Beth Moore gave a challenge (I believe on her blog) and I've had some friends repost that same challenge, but the basic idea is to memorize two verses a month and 24 verses in 2011. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot but it will be 24 verses more than I knew the year before and I think it a very doable commitment. I will try and remember (and as time allows) to post my memory verses on the 1st and 15th of each month here on my blog. I will choose verses based on my Bible reading and what is going on in my own life. Feel free to make this commitment in 2011 along with me. You can memorize the verses that I post or just let my blog be a reminder to choose your own verses to memorize for the month. I pray and ask you to pray with me that we would be a family/parents as described in Deuteronomy 6: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates."

Praying that whatever is ahead in 2011 we will seek Jesus Christ!