Missed setting your New Year's resolutions? There's still time. Read Sandy's three simple goals for the coming year and then write to inspire!

New Year’s Opportunities

I’m still recuperating from my vacation. If you read my last column, Reader, then you know that Scooter developed a whopper of a cold. So did his mother. Yep. We are still down with it, believe it or not. Call it genetics; once we get a cold, we keep it around forever. Aren’t we hospitable?

Not.

Anyway. I haven’t fully recovered from my wonderful, family-filled vacation in Tennessee. I had a great time, my husband got to relax away from the pressures of his job, and the boys got some quality time with the Grandparental Units. It was great.

Let’s not forget the new story I discovered while we were there!

Back home…

I’ve been working on that Middle of the Night, Sick Baby story. It’s fun! My hero is a man of God who has been a terrific neighbor to the widow next door with the baby. I am enjoying getting to know them and their local scene as well as their particular relationship issues.

That’s not all that’s been clattering away on my keyboard. Research for an historical novel has taken me all over the Internet, to review Latin, Norwegian, Irish, and Anglo-Saxon languages. I’ve been delving into the psyches of 9th Century priests and Vikings, learning how the Lord made plants to heal his children, and how they were used long ago.

We live in a wonderful world! It’s sometimes something I forget, as a stay-at-home mom. :-)

Goals with my Kids and Keyboard

I am not one to make resolutions in the new year. Any new year. I mean…either something is important enough to just do, or it’s not, right?

However, any professional needs to have a goal or two. When one is a stay-at-home professional, it is especially important to articulate these goals, because there are so very many details that weave through every day! Focus – even if it’s a distant focus – is necessary.

The writer of proverbs, the Teacher, says that a virtuous woman manages her home and her business in such a way that her children rise up and call her blessed. I think that is my number one goal: to serve my family in such a way that the Lord is honored and his blessing is evident in my life and to my guys.

My number two goal: to complete the books that I feel God is leading me to share with people, whether the story is a romance or not.

And number three (because three just seems the natural sort of number in goal-setting, don’t you think, Reader?): to come to a greater understanding of God’s Word this year. This will bring me closer to the Lord as well as give me encouragement in my home and with my writing. And, wow, it’ll help with my Sunday School teaching. Novel idea, no?

The Challenge!

I had a pastor once who made New Year’s Resolutions like these: I resolve never to go hang gliding this year. I resolve not to eat okra. I resolve to avoid coloring my hair. These are fun, sure. They can make you laugh, and that was the intention, for Pastor BG didn’t believe in making resolutions to break every year, either.

For myself, I’ll print out my Goals for 2003. There are only three of them! I’ll let you know in about twelve months how I did, and you’re welcome to check on me to hold me accountable.

Of course, it’ll be a lot easier to keep the writing related ones once Scooter and I are healthy again! Super Cold is still, alas, alive and kicking in my household!

May good health and high spirits lace your life this week…and may you establish God-honoring goals for both your home and your work! :-)

~~Sandy~~