This year, instead of setting traditional goals, I am practicing a fruit of the spirit each month to move closer to the person I hope to be. I explain more here! It did not go unnoticed by me that likely my busiest month of this year fell on my designated “peace” month. Peaceful, it was not. (Hence the fact that I didn’t get around to writing a post at all!) The peace I’m interested in pursuing for this project, though, is less about the circumstances I find myself in and more about the disposition and mindset that guides me through them. The peace I’m working toward is the peace of an un-ruffle-able mind, a head space that’s calm and quiet instead of roiling. I don’t spend a lot of time obsessing, over analyzing, or worrying about things, but one thing I can do is hold a grudge. If I’m in a grumpy mood and John does something to annoy me, I’m capable of freezing him out for as long as I want. (This is not new – my family nickname growing up was Princess Thundercloud because of the ease with which I could show my displeasure.) On the other hand, if I do something to annoy John (it’s difficult, but it does happen), he forgives me just as soon as I show the slightest bit of contrition. This is one thing I love about marriage, that you can show your ugly and your person says, yes, I see that, and I still love you. At its best, it’s a lifelong, up close and personal opportunity to learn, with grace upon grace given and received. I imagine this inner peace is something that’s always been with John, in some form or another, but when I asked him about it several years

This year, instead of setting traditional goals, I am examining and practicing a fruit of the spirit each month. I explain more here! When I think about joy, the first thing that comes to mind is gratitude. I think gratitude is the “secret” to a joyful life, because the only possible outflow from gratitude is joy. When I am grateful, I am joyful. When I am grateful, I see the abundance in everything around me. I see that I have more than enough! For the last few weeks, I have been keeping an impromptu gratitude journal. To be honest, while I am trying to embrace the whimsy of writing down whatever I happen to be most grateful for at the moment, sometimes it feels a bit aimless. There are so many HUGE things I have to be grateful for that I feel like I need to write all those down first! As in… 1) My health 1a) Health of husband 1b) Health of family 1c) Health of friends 1d) Health of cats …and on and on. As a side note, the whimsy has led to some random recordings – why am I thinking about Free Cone Day in the middle of February?? (April 14, FYI!) So, has cultivating gratitude helped me to be more joyful? Yes, I think so! However, even though many of the things I have written down are not materialistic, almost all of them are circumstantial, and I think that’s not telling the full story. Life Church’s current sermon series is called “God Never Said That,” and I happened to listen to the most recent one as I was mulling over all of these thoughts. In it, Craig debunks the myth that “God wants you happy.” The sermon is definitely worth listening to, but for our purposes,

This year, instead of setting traditional goals, I am practicing a fruit of the spirit each month to move closer to the person I hope to be. I explain more here! Friends, thanks for all of your kind thoughts and excitement over this project! I’m excited to walk through it with you all, and see where it takes us. I know you’ll have so many insightful things to share! Hopefully I’ll have a few, too :) And where else to start but love? It’s the bedrock of who we want to be and what we want to have, and it’s the bedrock of what God is about, too. The greatest of these is love! Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind! Love your neighbor as yourself! But where to begin with such an expansive topic? My mind naturally goes to my husband, but while I can always use improvement, loving him well is already at the forefront of my mind. Same with loving God. Loving my neighbor, though – that’s a different story. For a long time, I didn’t dwell too much on the second part of the greatest commandment, because it didn’t seem like something I could really do anything about – I supposed I would just wait till I eventually become a better person, and then naturally I would love my neighbor more. And then I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and he rocked my world with this particular quote: Side note: This was just one of the many lines from this book that significantly altered my thinking and behavior as a Christian. Whether you consider yourself one or not, I CANNOT recommend reading this book strongly enough! Lightning bolt moment! Like most of Lewis&#