New Year

Not Just Them

| Marie Griffith

The new year brings the feeling of fresh starts and new possibilities. I feel it. You feel it. And the advertisers know we feel it. They seize every opportunity to take advantage of our desire for change.

To make sure change happens we’ll set goals and make charts. We’ll give up this and starting doing that. Some of us will pursue simplicity and purge all the extra stuff from our lives. We’ll clean out, give away, and organize.

Deep down we know the change we want is more than a neat house or different numbers on a scale. It’s more than the places we’ll go and the stuff we’ll buy.

Maybe the writer of Hebrews wrote his letter at the start of a new year. Maybe he saw the people were distracted with lots of other things. Maybe the people were weary and wanted change desperately. So after a bunch of reminders and several warnings the writer gave them much needed encouragement. Then he urged them to do three things. But not just them. He said us.

Let us draw near to God…

Let us hold unswervingly to hope…

Let us consider how we can spur one another on in love…

You’ll find these in Hebrews Chapter 10 verses 22- 25. Read the entire passage for yourself. It’s a good one. And whether or not the author of the letter wrote it at the beginning of the year or not, I think it’d be a good way to start one. A lot of change would definitely happen.

And the most important kind of change.

The 2017 Roundup

| Marie Griffith

Changes bring…….well, changes. No matter what kind it is, loss is difficult. While my family and I dealt with loss because of a necessary but painful ending, 2017 was a grand year. I wrote Broken about a month before the ending. I see now that I was writing anticipating the difficulty of what would come with it, reminding myself of God’s goodness and faithfulness. I wrote Against the Odds too. Although my parents’ story prompted the post, writing it out strengthened my resolve to do what we knew we had to do. There were hard things in 2017 but through them we’ve experienced abundant blessings, and more clarity and peace than we imagined.

2017 was another year of firsts, lots of growth, and wonderful beginnings. I made new friends and reconnected with long time ones. Some friendships deepened while others faded.

I started the year training with some of the same ladies I trained with in 2016 to run our second Spartan race. A co-worker joined us and she and I formed an even closer friendship. Something special happens when you train together on a regular basis. She helped me through a tough time, let me cry at her desk more than a few times, and listened without judgment. IMG_5273Our group conquered the Spartan Sprint in April and I wrote about it in my post Together Again.

I moved at soul-speed more this year than in recent years and got into a healthy rhythm of life. The kind of unforced rhythms we’re meant to live. I was more attentive to my family, took better care of myself, wrote more, and was able to notice the people and what was happening around me so I could live like it matters.

I volunteered as the Content Director at a non-profit start-up for the first five months of the year, rejoined my local Toastmasters club in June to hone my speaking skills, and am a founding member of a writers group called The Thinklings. This group of writers has been a significant source of encouragement, knowledge, and inspiration. I also took on more responsibility in my job and am enjoying the opportunities and challenges that come with it.

I’ve observed Lent in previous years but this year offered a unique occasion to partner with a friend while reading a Lent devotional called Bread and Wine and writing weekly about our journeys. And So I Began was the beginning of my Lent journey. My heart was especially tender and open during this time. A few of my most raw Lent posts are Take Heart, I’m Like Them, and Done. I feel it when I read them even now.

Another friend presented me with an opportunity to write a story for a magazine. I turned him down, but that was fear talking. Fortunately, I realized it in time to say yes and had my first ever article published in an online magazine. I wrote about how it almost didn’t happen in Face Your Fear. This led to another article being published in the same magazine, only this story was personal. Very personal. I wrote about my journey to that article in Out of The Dark. Both posts have links to the magazine stories if you want to read them.

In July, I went to my first writers conference and wrote about all I learned there in The Take Away. In August, my daughters and I enjoyed viewing the eclipse together, and while I wondered at the moon covering the sun, I was in awe of my daughter’s heart. I wrote about it in Eclipse.

bridal party cute af 1.jpgAs summer neared its end, the wedding planning was in full swing. My oldest daughter was showered with lots of love and gifts from family and friends. I was asked to pray for her at one of the showers and wrote about it in Keeping the Promises. Her October wedding was beautiful. She moved in to her husband’s house and her brother moved back in to ours. Our son is home, for now, from Colorado and working toward his next goal.IMG_6095.jpg

My youngest daughter inspired my most viewed post of 2017 and ever. It’s called Look What You Made Me Do. I connected Taylor Swift’s song with my daughter’s experience at a new high school and lots of people related.

I began a new feature on my blog called Monday School in the fall. It was a challenge at times but I didn’t miss a Monday and I’m going to continue my Monday School posts into 2018.

The fall also brought the most challenging race I’ve run to date. With six other ladies, I ran a Spartan Super near Atlanta, Georgia. It was 9.4 miles of hard. Then in December, six of us joined the Spartan Trifecta club by completing the 13.5 mile Beast in Tampa, Florida. I wrote about the anticipation of accomplishing the Trifecta in Making It Happen. Though the Beast was longer and colder, the Super had the hills that killed.

What a way to end the year! IMG_5897-COLLAGE

2018 is full of possibilities. I will do my best work at my job. We will continue meeting in homes for church in 2018 and I want to teach a ladies Bible study this year. I’ll attend another writers conference and hope to collaborate on a few projects with other writers and artists. I will continue to run and now I can see the possibility of a half marathon. Several friends are interested in doing a Spartan race and I may lead them to a 2018 Spartan Trifecta. It’s a good way to keep me training.

But of all the possibilities in 2018…….none is better than love. So with God’s help, I will love my family and friends better and better. I will notice and be present with the people around me. And I won’t waste an opportunity to live like it matters.

“So let us love, dear love, like as we ought, 
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.”            

Edmund Spenser – from Amoretti LXVIII: Most Glorious Lord of Life

featured photo by Joanna Schley from her Doors of Decatur series

Finally

No Small Lives

| Marie Griffith

We’re six days into the New Year and that means the ads you see on your screens and hear on your radio are all about making changes. Improving our diets. Getting fit. Taking control of our finances. Organizing our homes. Changing this and changing that.

Marketers know that with the new year our desire for a new way or a better thing or at least a change in the way we look or feel is heightened. We want our lives to be different …..we want them to be better.

But if we pay close attention to that desire we realize it’s more than that. We want to know there’s a purpose to all of this. We want to know we’re making a difference. We want to know our lives matter.

And they do.

You’re 1 in 7,000,000,000 people on this planet but there’s One who knows your name. He created you (Psalm 139:13). He is the One who gives you breath (Genesis 2:7). And he knows the number of hairs on your head (Matthew 10:30).

Our lives matter and so do our choices. Who we are at home and at work and the gym. It matters. What we do in the grocery store or the bank and at the salon. It matters.

You don’t have to be an athlete, an entertainer, a politician or author. It’s those of us in our workplaces, at the schools, and in lines at the store checkouts that make the difference.

There are no small lives. “For in him, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)

And it’s the day to day living where it counts the most.

Living like it matters is when you choose to smile at the disgruntled guy in line at the express checkout and letting him go ahead of you since he only has 3 items compared to your 14.

It might be calling your parents when you’d rather sit and watch your favorite show. Or fixing a meal for your neighbor. It’s also when you don’t overcrowd your calendar so that you are available to your teenagers just in case they want to talk.

What you think is mundane may be someone’s most meaningful moment. No matter who and where you are, you can live like it matters.

That’s the most important change you can make in 2017.

Photo courtesy of nina lindgren

The 2016 Rundown

| Marie Griffith

I look forward to 2017 with even greater anticipation than I did 2016. And 2016 didn’t disappoint. It was a wonderful year of growth and I did a lot of new things. In one of my January posts, titled Rising, I reflected on the amazing things I saw because I made a change and decided to do something new.

Some of the “first evers” for me in 2016:

  • Ate the Paleo Diet for 12 weeks
  • Ran an 8K in May
  • Ran the Spartan Race in Nashville in August
  • Ran a 10K in October

I chose to take on these physical challenges and have learned from all of them. Mostly I learned the importance of training and doing it with others. There’s something special about being part of a group working together toward a tough common goal. I wrote about it in my post Together.

There were more new things for my family in 2016. In February we moved from our home of 13 years into my newly renovated childhood home. Our home is beautiful but there were some adjustments for us. We are no longer in a rural area and it interfered with my morning runs. I lost my running groove…..or so I thought. I just had to embrace the new and wrote about it in Embrace the New.

Throughout the year I continued issuing my Live Like it Matters Challenges but I wrote more than ever about my childhood and the legacy my parents left. Living in my childhood home has brought a flood of memories and it’s been a wonderful gift of healing, new perspective and renewed gratefulness. Some of those posts are Memory, Groundwork, Quitting, and Mama.

We went on our annual trip to the beach with many of our favorite people. It’s a special place and does our hearts good to be there. I highlighted it in my post This Place.

My son moving to Texas last year for a job, then moving to Colorado this year provided a lot of inspiration. His courage to take bold steps into the unknown is fascinating. We visited him in October and it was one of the best trips ever. I wrote several posts as a result of the trip: Possibility and Shine are two of them.

I was finally able to put into words some of the difficulties of 2013, 2014 and part of 2015. I’d start the posts, then stop. Try to start again, but no words. They just wouldn’t come. More times than not, something is worked out within me when I write and I knew I needed to write about these things. At last something broke inside of me and the words came for the first post called Linger. It took months for the other healing posts to happen but I found the words. I’ve received more comments on those posts than others because everyone has experienced loss, grief and heaviness. Those posts are called Gone and The Dark .

We had a great holiday season. We gathered with family and friends several times. On Thanksgiving I ran my 2nd Turkey Trot and significantly improved my time. Our son came home the first week of December so we celebrated Christmas with the extended family early. Christmas gets more and more special with each passing year.

God is good and 2016 has been full of blessings. But what God did within my own heart in 2016 is the most momentous. He has given me a clearer view of what’s important. I want to love extravagantly because that’s the way He loves me.

Now I will let Him teach me how to do it.

All-Time Favorites

I Meant 2015

| Marie Griffith

Every entry in my journal for 2015 is dated 2014.

I see the blunder in previous journals. In the first few weeks at the beginning of each year I’ve done the same. I see where I’ve changed the numbers, trying to make it look as if I’d not made the error. Or I’ve erased it, or crossed it out and rewritten it.

A lot of you make the same mistake.

It takes a while to get used to a New Year, a different pattern, a fresh attitude, or a healthier habit.

My friend is frustrated that her scale didn’t aptly measure the deprivation she tolerated last week. It’s not what she expected. She wants results quickly. She wants to see the proof of her work.

Have you already messed up on your New Year’s resolutions? Have you given up on the promises you made to yourself or to others?

You paid the gym but haven’t shown up to use it.

You quit smoking but the patch isn’t enough. You’ve been sneaking one every day at lunch.

You told your family you wouldn’t bring work home anymore. You promised to sit and eat dinner together and patiently help the kids with their homework. But an unexpected deadline caused you to hurry through dinner last night to finish a report.

Your intentions haven’t turned into actions. You feel like you’ve failed and you’re discouraged.

I told my frustrated friend to focus on what she’s done right. I urged her to quit stepping on the scale and measure her success another way. Keep declining the doughnuts, and refusing the Ruffles. The desired results will come. Just don’t give up.

We all date our checks incorrectly at the first of the year. But we don’t get frustrated; we don’t quit trying to get it right. We don’t give in to the “I’m never going to change” or “This is too hard” thoughts. We will eventually date our memos, journals and checks correctly.

This morning I changed every “4” in the misprinted 2014s to a “5”. I messed up but I will get it right.

I have to. It just takes a while.

15-16 So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet! Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it. Philippians 3:15-16 (MSG)