Recently I've noticed my tendency to focus on certain areas of my life over others, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it can quickly throw my priorities out of whack and cause me to miss a lot of the beautiful things around me. My first instinct is to neglect things like eating healthy or making time for a quiet time. I rationalize that its worth the fifteen extra minutes of sleep, so I'm stuck with grabbing a pop tart and half a cup of cold coffee on my way out the door. I put off reading my Bible till the absolute last thing of the day, and by that point its usually somewhere around 1 AM and I figure that God will be more offended if I fall asleep while I pray than if I just skip it altogether.
Routines are oh so easy to fall into, and while there are good things about structure, sometimes I miss being able to wake up with no agenda. But since I've entered this thing called "the Real World", structureless living is in short supply. I rush to the bus stop in the morning, barely make it on time to my first class, somehow make it through my next three, zoom off to pick up Roxy, my little puppy, try and relieve her of as much energy as possible, somehow fit two full days of nannying in and schedule my free hours for things like homework and Biblestudies and late night phone calls with my boyfriend. And do it all over and over and over again.
And I have a feeling I'm not alone here....
With the blurry rush that is our day to day, balance is an imperative thing to master. I read a blog post a few months ago from a dear friend back in Nebraska, that unbeknownst to her has stuck with me all this time. She wrote about choosing one word to define your year. A word that you've prayerfully considered, seen reappear in your life, or encompasses a lesson you're learning.
That was all the way back in January. Three months later, I know what my word is. Balance.
Used as a noun, balance means...
an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.
Upright and steady. How fitting.
Balance is recognizing what is important and what isn't so that I can remain steady- faithful to what I've committed to. Balance is distributing the weight of all of my commitments and relationships, putting each in their proper place. While its so easy for me to "loose my balance" and give certain things more weight than they should and others not enough, its never too late to redistribute and refocus.
Today I'm thankful for that blog post I read months ago (you can/should read it here). I'm thankful that lost balance can be restored.
Though I was a little late in figuring out my "word" for the year, I'm excited to see how keeping balance in the forefront of my mind will help my priorities fall into place.
If you had to pick one word to define you for 2013, what would it be? Its something worth considering.
Happy weekend!
Simply,
Simply,
Liv
