New Year’s Stream of Consciousness…

Happy New Year online friends! It is my sincere hope and prayer that each of you had blessed and rewarding Christmas celebrations and built memories with your families that last a lifetime. Our holiday celebration was different this year. We took a more low-key approach than in years past, choosing to focus on the spiritual implications of Christ’s advent and less on the materialistic madness that seems determined to distract from the real meaning of Christmas.

Our holiday celebrations have been in a steady state of revision every year for the past few years. It still felt odd to not be immersed in excessive shopping, baking and running back and forth. For the sake of continuity, we kept our tradition of homemade Christmas cookies and eggnog, complete with Christmas carols in the background, on the night we brought home and decorated our tree.  We created a new tradition that we will keep for years to come: celebrating advent and ending dinner with Scripture reading, a devotional reading, and an opportunity for everyone to express the things the readings inspired in their hearts. In fact, we have decided not to stop with Christmas, but to make Scripture readings and discussion at the end of dinner a daily ritual.

The year ended on a high note when my family was able to spend a couple of days getting to know Jamala’s family. Our five girls and their five girls hit it off almost immediately and our husbands became fast friends. It was so much fun. Our fabulous Florida weather made it hard for them to go, but they did though we look forward to the day when fate allows us to see them again.

For the first time in a long time, I have no resolutions. Not even to lose weight, because I have been (very)slowly and steadily losing weight the past couple of months by using common sense. I’ll share more on that later because I could kick myself for not apprehending this before the Twinkie guy  made headline news. And no, I’m not advocating eating a twinkie-a-day. I just don’t feel the need for a grand resolution to lose the weight that has been stubbornly hanging on since Lil’ Princess was born in ’06.

There is one thing I resolved to do that’s already done: update and clear out some of the subscriptions in my Google Reader account. I had active subscriptions to blogs that I’d delete without even reading. After reading a post on a blog I have no use for, I posted an angry, sarcastic response that may have been warranted, but being right wasn’t enough to justify my rant.  The anger of this woman cannot produce the righteousness of God, and I have allowed the post to remain as my reminder to exercise humility when I take to the keyboard.

“Speaking” of taking to the keyboard, I’ve given some thought to the direction this blog will  go moving forward. The things I write about may increasingly seem irrelevant to the audience this blog has attracted and that’s to be expected as we are all evolving and growing. Things that were once matters of monumental importance to me now seem less significant. It’s not that my overall perspective has changed when it comes to the priority of home, the importance of being the primary caregivers of our children, etc. It’s just that there are bigger issues  where neglect has manifested itself in the way we order (or fail to order), our families. The tension also arises from a slightly different place as well which is why I want to offer a heads up to those of you who have been with me since the beginning.

When I began writing online I stumbled into the blogosphere as an isolated stay at home wife and mother feeling even more isolated as I began to express my desire to homeschool the two youngest of my five children. As a Christian, future homeschooling mother living in a public school, working mother world and attending a mostly public school, working mother church, I found an instant camaraderie here as well as ideas and lifestyle choices I’d never been exposed to before. The more I learned and read, the more I began to express my thoughts on these issues.

It has been fun to communicate with women who believe as I and who value home and family as much I do. However when I close my laptop and walk outside my door, life is more complicated than the one-dimensional pictures we see painted online. My own life is one where simplicity is often found wanting. I have children enrolled in public high school even as I prepare to homeschool our younger children. My own family fails to meet the standard of a Norman Rockwell painting, and I have friends and family members with great marriages, and others who are really struggling. Struggling with trying to obey Scripture’s command to submit to their husbands when they believe they are stronger and more capable. Struggling with weight even thought they know their husbands are unhappy with it. Struggling with not wanting physical intimacy with their men. Grappling with what I like to call “my money is my money but his money is our money” syndrome. What’s more, many are convinced that their unacceptable attitudes are perfectly acceptable. I want to talk about some of that, so this space will lose its appeal to those who don’t.

I am passionate about marriage. Not because our salvation is tied to how well we perform as wives  but because we are passing something intangible on to our children and to be anything less than intentional is a disservice to them. In fact if there is one thing I can say I have resolved to do this year it’s to be more aware. Aware of how every day is a an opportunity to see God in the people I live with and encounter. Aware of how important the little things are when I relate to my husband. Aware of how important it is to extend myself to people around me who feel empty and alone. Aware.

Before this stream turns into an ocean, let me just end by saying happy new year and I look forward to some stimulating conversations in 2011!

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