Resolution is a Strong Word

Resolution is a Strong Word It's that time of year again. Time for a little R&R, and by R&R, I mean, of course, reflection and resolution. It's New Year's, after all. Who's resting and relaxing? Maybe retching [sic, literally] and recovering from 2 much bubbly last night? But that's not really what I'm talking about here. That would be gross, and if your current mood is hungover, it would probably make you hurl again, and that would probably make me hurl, and I really don't feel like that right now. It's not my favorite. Doesn't even make the list. Not any list. Well, maybe a top 10 non-favorite kind of list.

Speaking of lists...and you thought I was digressing, which is a bit judgmental on your part, but confronting you about that ranks up there right below vomit...and anyway, you're just trying to change the subject, and this is MYspace after all, and I was speaking of lists. And not just your average Amazon wish list, which you can remove from your cart if you change your mind. Also it comes with a receipt and you can just return it, which is like putting it back in the cart and taking it back to Amazon and then removing it from your wish cart if you change your mind.

But we're not talking about stuff in a cart here. Unless the cart we're talking about is the cart called our soul. (Note to copyright that cool metaphor.) A little r&r. Although isn't it funny how resolution ends up being a really too strong word for what we mean, and we end up taking them out of the proverbial cart.

But anyway, Sunday last at the Vineyard, Dave Workman talked about his lists: the top 3 coolest things that happened in 2007, and the bottom 3, or "things I screwed up", and exhorted us to make our own. So here goes mine.

My top 3 things coolest things that happened in 2007:
1) We started going to the Vineyard. We had already been doing some reflecting over the summer as we found ourselves with empty laps and a house full of teenagers with scissors aimed at our apron strings. They are the most amazing, beautiful, cool, delightful, excellent, fun, goofy, huge hearted...kids in the world. We have good relationships with our kids and we work hard to try and make sure the ground is good for them to grow, so to speak, in our home, and beyond, where we can have influence. Not in a control freak sense. God is in control. More in a "being compelled by the love of God" for our kids sense. So we were talking right before school started about our kids, their happiness, and their passion for God and etc., and wanting to make sure we were in a church where the love of God was real to them, where they were ministered to, nurtured, engaged. "Coinkidinkly" the Vineyard was beginning a series called "Spark: Igniting a Passionate Faith". Voila. Even we observed the obvious dots, connected, in the form of the Hand of God pointing us to where we happily be. Coinkidinky my arse.

2) Methinks we are settled into our new home and life, not on cruise but smooth sailing and basking a bit, and the rear view mirror flipped so the headlights aren't so blinding.

3) I have settled into a place in life I like to call 40-Love, where I have found a personal niche in tennis, which I had to find after my mean old kids all got taller than me, and their own lives besides, leaving me with said empty lap and so-far-protected but fraying apron strings. Not to mention the cool tennis community I've found myself happy to have landed in.

My bottom 3:
1) I discovered I have a "zone" that I can get in, and actually miss out on life around me, especially the 3 most important and not-so-little lives around me, that I have to be careful not to fall into.

2) I didn't do a lot of writing in 2007, which is really sad to me, because it is one of my favorites.

3) I spent a lot of time just feeling jaded, instead of polishing it and letting it be beautiful.

So that's what's in my cart. And it's time to checkout.