My resolve to be resolute.

Earlier this evening I engaged in a little friendly competition with Mother Nature. If it snowed enough to warrant a snow day, then I would blog. If she made fools out of local meteorologists and the clouds remained greedy with their precipitation, then I would not. What can I say? I grew up as an only child who stooped to low levels for the sake of amusement [after my parents had fulfilled their parental obligation to entertain me beyond measure, of course]. Guess what: Mother Nature won. She always does, my friends. Always. So now even though I should be using my Internet resources to research "building fires in fireplaces" while I still have electricity, I'm keeping my end of the deal and blogging. Besides I don't have any firewood. Or matches.

Today's Topic: New Year's Resolutions.

Now that it's January 10th, many of us who made them are now to the point where we have to stop for a second and think about exactly what it was we resolved to do in 2011. Or do you three readers not make resolutions?

I've been known to make a resolution or two throughout the years. For example, there was the year that I decided to keep an exercise journal. I did...for about 3 years. There was also the year that I gave up french fries. I did...for about 6.5 years. Once I decided to form the habit of taking a multi-vitamin everyday. I did...until I ran out of them that one time and never bought anymore at the store. Until last week. One year I decided to journal daily even if I really had nothing to say. I did...until October of the same year.

Of course it's easy to identify the benefits of all of these resolutions. I happened to be training for a half-marathon the year I started the exercise journal so it was especially important that I keep track of my progress. Cutting out french fries is a no-brainer. Look at how heart healthy I was for those 6 years! Never mind all the cookies and pizza I supplemented with during the absence of my favorite deep fried carbohydrate. Multi-vitamins? Who doesn't benefit from those? But the more I sit here and think about those resolutions, the more my real purpose and intent behind those resolutions becomes apparent. Sure, I remember exactly what I wore on the first day of kindergarten [and all sorts of other random, ridiculous things], but does anyone find it odd that I remember exactly how long I kept those resolutions? Yes, odd even for me...the girl who remembers everything. Here's the question: Did I keep those resolutions for the benefits gained from them or for the 'bragging rights' to share how long I kept them? Hmmm. Was I simply going through the motions so I could check off another box of something that I had completed? Is that really the purpose of resolutions? Probably not. And it's probably something everyone else in the entire universe figured out long ago but I've said it before: it takes me longer to learn the simple stuff.

How often do we go through the motions of life completing tasks and taking action on things just to say that we've done them? Or not doing things so we can say that we didn't do them? Is that really living? While I love lists and forms and filling in blanks, I've learned that life is too dynamic and three-dimensional to ever fit neatly on the one-dimensional list that I've created. It's too big to fit into the finite space of a blank on a page.

Very rarely do the things that I write here and the things that I write in my journal intersect. My journal is for me. But today I'm going to share what I journaled this afternoon with you. It's my 2011 resolution...of sorts. Here goes: "...I want this year to be my year of living in the moment, not dwelling on the past or looking so forward into the future that I miss the here and now. This does not mean that I am not hopeful about the future because I am certainly hopeful. God is such a big and mighty God that I am confident he is going to use me in a big and mighty way. I pray that I continuously seek his will for my life so that I can do the work that brings him glory. ... I want to give back this year. People have loved me and shown me such compassion and grace through such a tough time last year. My desire is that I pass that along to those around me who are hurting. I pray that my heart be full of love and compassion because love and anger cannot reside together in the same heart. And it is love that never fails. I want to open my heart to love because that is what it is ready for."

Note: When I refer to love I'm not referring to love of the starry-eyed and giddy as a school girl persuasion. It's just that my heart has healed to the point after dad's death and the event we will simply refer to as "the summer that earned me size 2 pants" that I'm no longer so numb and incapable of giving to the people around me.

My resolution for this year isn't really quantifiable. In fact probably when I go back and reread this little ramble before I hit "publish post", I'll wonder just what exactly it is that I'm so determined to do. But that's kind of it...I'm determined to be determined in the things that I do. I want to do them with heart. I don't want to lose heart when I don't put my heart into something like I could have or should have. This is a tall order. I should rest up.