New Year, New Me: Reflections

2011 was a difficult year for our family between D’s two back surgeries, the loss of family members and pets, and a few more things thrown in for good measure, but it was also a time of family bonding.  We found ourselves growing together, learning together.  We were given the special opportunity to spend some good quality time together.  Granted, for a good chunk of that time, D was in pain, but it was still a good time of bonding for all of us.  As a military family, we definitely don’t take for granted the time that we have together.

With D’s back issues, we found ourselves not being as fit and active.  In December, I started getting back into shape and adding some puppies to the mix really helped speed up that process.  As a family, 2012 will find us working on getting back to where we were prior to D’s surgery.  Actually, we hope to be more fit than we were prior to his first surgery.

One thing that was a constant for us was eating fairly healthy.  Yes, there were times that we have had frozen gluten free dinners to make my job easier, but we tried to make sure that the main portion of our diet was healthy.  We continue to enjoy homemade goodies and have no intention of giving those yummies up.  I just try to make them a little bit healthier by changing up some of the ingredients.

Today, I realized that at some point in the last couple of months I had gone into “robot” mode with it comes to my spiritual walk.  What I mean is that I continued to go to the Lord in prayer and study His Word, but I realized that it had become more of a routine than a personal relationship.  That realization this morning set me aback as that is not what I want.  Because of this, I’m re-evaluating how I’m handling my prayer life – spiritual life.  I want to be on fire for Him and not just go through the motions.  He is the reason that we’ve made it through these hard times this year.

So, as I work on getting fit physically this year, I will also be working on getting more in shape spiritually as well.  One of the things that I’ll be doing is reading through the Bible.  In 2010, Munchkin and I read through the Bible in 90 days which was a great experience.  This time, I’m going to take my time and read through it in a year.  I plan on doing something a little differently as I will be reading through it chronologically this time around.

My idea is to post a reading plan for the week on Sundays.  If you want to join in, that would be great.  It’s always nice to have several people reading together.