Haley
I recently touched on the importance of reflection and its relation to personal growth. So I’m going to take a quick look back at 2019 to provide some background for where we’re going in 2020.
The first half of 2019 was focused on our kids, mainly the baby’s health issues. As much as we tried to be proactive, much of the first 6 months of the year consisted of us being reactive to his health issues and attending 2 to 3 doctor appointments each week. Thankfully, every issue but his food allergies was resolved by summer.
The second half of 2019 brought about lots of positive changes for our family. Admittedly, we had to jump some hurdles to get to that point, and there were a few weeks that were hard and messy. But being on the other side of the hurdles now, I believe wholeheartedly Barbara Mouser‘s line of thinking when she says that sometimes God intensifies the struggle to bring about resolution.
Though no one enjoys the struggle, the resolution that God brought our family was far better than anything I could have imagined. If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I had a good marriage, I would have said, “Of course.” If you would have asked me 6 months ago if I had a good marriage, I would have said, “Most definitely.” But comparing my marriage today to the past, I would call it amazing. Back in the day, I just didn’t realize it could be this awesome.
The past 6 months have required a lot of focus to get us to this point. We’ve grown spiritually and personally. I’ve learned to open up emotionally, which has been like pulling teeth in the past as my natural instinct is to close myself off. The husband lovingly calls the past 6 months our marriage bootcamp. Swift intense changes have taken place, because we were both motivated to grow and improve ourselves. The most notable changes include doing a weekly Bible study, sharing personal prayers, going on weekly dates and spending the evenings interacting and creating together instead of watching TV. And we’ve also opened up emotionally to be more honest about feelings and fears.
The overflow of these changes in heart and changes in how we spend our time led to the discovery of our family mission in life. I’ll share more later, but having a mission and focus as a family has been amazing. It gets your head out of the weeds a bit and allows you to focus on the bigger picture of life. It helps you to continually audit your actions, your words, your thoughts, your resources, your relationships and your time to make sure they line up with your purpose.
Our Word of the Year: Intentional
With all that being said (and I’ve touched on it a bit in Instagram @hobsonhomestead), our word for 2020 is INTENTIONAL. After the struggle, we made a lot of positive changes in 2019 and we want to continue that trend with intentionality as we head into 2020. The husband has embraced his role as spiritual leader of our family, reading the Bible to the kids every night, praying before our group workouts at the gym, choosing how we study the Bible together as a couple, shaping our family mission and more. We’ve also increased our quality time together as a family and are making more efforts to detach from our devices. (I’m even scheduling a lot of my social posts so I don’t get caught scrolling mindlessly.)
We are still house hunting (it’s been 10 months and counting), but we were right where we needed to be as we were going through all these changes last fall. We have a very clear direction at this point when it comes to house hunting (a functional house on a few acres in North Georgia), but until we find it, we’re focusing on being faithful with what we have and where we are now.
For us, being intentional means we want to be proactive in most every step we take in life, not merely reactive. We want to be intentional with what home we buy, with how we parent our kids, with how we serve our community, with how we spend our free time, and more. Our heart is to positively impact our small sphere of influence using our gifts and talents.
I’m not saying it’s going to be a breeze. Being intentional will be a work in progress for us. It will require making mistakes and failing, but picking ourselves back up. It will require getting discouraged and weary, but praying for perseverance and faith. It will require getting distracted and losing focus, but leaning hard on each other to ensure we right our course. It will require a lot from us, but we have never been more ready to give.
Last week, the husband reminded me that we haven’t made any resolutions for the New Year. But I reminded him that we made a dozen life-changing resolutions this past fall that we will carry over into the New Year and beyond. But being as motivated as we have been lately, we are making some goals for 2020 based on our list of reflection topics that I wrote about. I love thinking about new ideas, planning, making goals, dreaming, etc., but I’m not always the best with following through long term. Luckily, that’s where the husband’s strengths come in!
So hello 2020. We’ve never been more ready for you!
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