It was a beautiful winter month with unexpected twists and turns and, finally, snow. The month opened with our traditional New Year’s Day Pork and Sauerkraut dinner. We jumped into a lovely routine, hitting all the goals the first week. The second week, we watched our plans fall apart when COVID hit our house for the first time (as far as we know). We lost three dear friends during the month of January. Finally, the very last weekend, we got to finish up our Christmas celebration with the last of our family.
As you know, my word for the year is Eternity. You can read more about what’s behind it here. In short, I have three sets of goals for this year. My PERSONAL goals are going well. I worked on each of them steadily and made progress on each one.
My PEOPLE goals are in three areas reminding me of keeping an Eternity perspective:
HOMEMAKING – Creating a Reflection of Heaven Here on Earth
HOSPITALITY – Impacting Others for Heaven
HOMESCHOOLING – Preparing my own Disciples for Heaven
My HOMEMAKING goal was to clear out our clothing and storage room. I did sort through the boys’ clothing and got rid of a few things I am not wearing anymore. We are going to put new shelves up in our storage room in the next few months, so I deferred that plan a bit. I did work on consistently doing my monthly cleaning chores. Basically, I split them up so I do one small monthly chore each weekday. It’s much easier to clean the baseboards in one room, for example, than in the whole house at once. We were able to replace our much-loved dining room table we got as a wedding present. I didn’t cry, but I did think of the many family dinners, math and science lessons and the start of our business around that table as my men carried it out.
Due to all the sickness, we didn’t get to practice much HOSPITALITY this month. However, we did have a couple family members join us for New Year’s Day and the kids had friends over a few evenings.
We had a good month HOMESCHOOLING. The younger boys are working through a great book on how to know God and we’re almost finished memorizing the first chapter of James. We are studying history from the 1850s through modern times. We spent a lot of time on the Civil War and other world events around that time this month. We’re learning about atoms, molecules and the elements in science besides their normal Math and Language Arts work. My older son is a junior this year and chose to do two subjects at a time in a concentrated manner, more like a college course. He finished Chemistry and English last semester and is now working on Government and Geometry. He will also be getting to Economics during the second part of the semester. His Literature is integrated into Government and Economics. The younger boys chose their pieces for the spring piano recital. I’m excited to hear them start working on them soon.
My PRINT goals, as I mentioned in my word of the year post, include this blog, another writing project I’m working on (may share when it’s finished) and what I’m reading.
In case you missed them, here are the posts (besides this one) from the blog in January:
Word of 2022: Eternity
How to (not) Leave Jesus Behind
When A Hero Slips Away
What I Read In January:
Devotional Reading: I read the book of Acts, then a Proverb for each day after I’d finished that. I am doing a word study throughout the Bible on words related to “sin” to answer a theological conundrum I’ve had recently. I’m also reading a chapter a day from J. Warner Wallace’s Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels.
The reliability of the eyewitness accounts related to the resurrection, like the reliability of the cold-case eyewitnesses, must be confirmed by the early documentation of the first investigators.
– J. Warner Wallace, Cold-Case Christianity
Biography/Memoir: For Such a Time as This: My Faith Journey through the White House and Beyond by Kayleigh McEnany
Homemaking: Making a Welcome: Christian Life and the Practice of Hospitality by Maria Poggi Johnson
With every relationship we embrace or refuse, every stranger we welcome or avoid, we shape both the world around us and the soul that will one day encounter, face to face, the one who has, all along, been every stranger.
– Maria Poggi Johnson, Making a Welcome
Finance: Baby Steps Millionaires: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth – and How You Can Too by Dave Ramsey
…as most of us are growing our wealth, we’re also emotionally and spiritually maturing. We are growing as individuals as our money grows. In a way, this simultaneous growth protects us. As we gradually build both our wealth and our character at the same time, our wealth never gets so big that it crushes us because our character is strong enough to carry it.
Dave Ramsey, Baby Steps Millionaires
Fiction: Logan Point Series by Patricia Bradley
Inspiration for January:
Quote for Eternity:
The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.
– Dallas Willard, as quoted in The Pour Over newsletter