My New Year Motto- This Will be My Year for Healing


"It is a new year! Want to reset your life? Set new Goals? Create a better you?"
I just read the above quote on the KLOVE website as I was signing up for the -Listen to Christian music for 30 days challenge. And more than anything, every part of who I am, needs a year of healing. Of course I am not sure if it will take one year or more to figure things out and "heal," but I feel like making a commitment to one year is at least a beginning to the direction I need to go.

So the other day I kept hearing about this 30 day challenge and I decided I am going to do it. I have heard about this many times in previous years, and I just never tried it out. I listen to a lot of Christian music already anyways, but I find that when a song comes on that I don't particularly like or it gives me a headache, I tend to change the channel to anything else which sounds good to me. Now I am going to just turn the radio off, instead of channel surf. That way I honor the 30 day challenge of only listening to Christian music. 

As I have been thinking about the different aspects of the healing process, I figured why not do this challenge too. There has been so many times that God has showed up for me in little songs that come on the radio. I figure this 30 day music commitment could be a good beginning to set the pace for me for this year.

I have a friend who told me as I was going through trials last year--for you to be healthy- your body, mind and spirit need to be all balanced and operating healthy individually. Therefore when each is working correctly and healthy, all of "who you are" is in essence healthy. So if one isn't healthy it affects the other two and vice versa.

If you read my previous blog entry you will see that I mentioned last year being a very difficult year for me. I can honestly say now looking back, that my mind, body and spirit all were unhealthy through the entire year. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I was severely anemic to start the year off and I didn't know how bad it was until April. I was completely run down. Right before the anemia discovery, I was having hard times emotionally as my kids faced a horrible sick winter. To sum it up, both kids were taken to the ER during the roughest sicknesses. My daughter got bad with pneumonia at one time. And my son got hospitalized with a "mystery" sickness. They weren't sure exactly what was causing the pain. It was up in the air whether it was his appendix which needed removal. Anyhow, those were the worst of their sicknesses, but really they were sick all winter. We only had probably one to two breaks from them being sick, which lasted for 2 weeks each. So my mind wasn't operating in a healthy manner because I was filled with worry and stressed. The hardships continued into spring and summer but that is too much to get into now.

Anyways as I faced these emotional and physical trying times, my spiritual life began to struggle too. I was so exhausted from circumstances that I wasn't spending time with God. And it didn't help that I also was upset with God for allowing these things to happen in my life. There were no breaks to the rough situations which rolled into my life one after another.

Which is why now that 2013 is over, I am ready for a year of healing. I have decided to commit myself to doing more for each of these areas- mind, body and spirit. This is what I have to start with:
1- Christian Music 30 day challenge
2- Get myself to the gym at least 3 times a week
3- Make it a priority to spend time with God everyday

These things sound so simple as I write them, but I know that when the daily life events occur with caring for my kids, it is  much harder to stick to commitments. Relaxing on the couch and watching a show after a busy day with the kids is so tempting at times. But I know that I will have to give up some of my down time to make my best effort to stick to working on these goals. Anyhow, I realized I really wrote a lot this time, and believe it or not, I still have more to say about this topic. To be continued. 

Have you set any goals this year? Do you see any areas in your life which is out of balance? Do you have any advice on how to stay motivated and committed to keeping goals? I would love to hear from you.