The Trouble with Intentionality

Life has become hectic and helter-skelter:

                         

       Schedules tipped on their heads.  

                           Sickness has invaded.

                                         Snowstorms have rudely interrupted. 

I sigh, "So much for being intentional!",  then quickly correct myself.

I choose to be intentional, not necessarily productive.   

I have little control over snowstorms and sickness .   But I do have control over how I handle myself and minister to my family in each circumstance.  Which is precisely why I choose "intentional."

Because the floor may still be dirty, but my conscience can be clean.   

My to-do list may be undone, but my child's heart needs met.  

My cooking may not be gourmet, but my family's soul can be "made fat" with the Bread of Life.

So instead of ticking off a mental list of what has been accomplished by the end of the day, I ask myself:

1.  Have I been kind and deliberate in my responses to daughter today?

2.  Have I invested in her life for eternity today?

3.  Have I communicated love and respect for my husband today?

4.  Have I used the time I had to myself wisely, for Kingdom purposes, and not selfishly or lazily?

The trouble with intentionality is that these questions are not as easily answered as a simple to-do list. They require more heart-searching and soul-deep honesty than is comfortable. Sometimes I'd rather look at the check-list than at the heart-list.

But at the end of my life, my Lord won't ask me how clean my house was or how creative my meals were or how artistic my child's handicraft was.   I'm convinced that leading a life of intention is the secret to hearing the longed-for words that every Christian desires one day to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

Ironically, living with intention usually means doing the mundane, daily tasks.  However, being intentional gives meaning to the task.  

It makes worship of our work. 

It brings inspiration to our interactions.

Being intentional means I need Grace -- so much Grace.  I need supernatural Grace because I am not intentional.  I would rather be lazy and take the easy way out.  

The trouble with being intentional is that it's impossible to do without God.  And therein lies the Glory of intentionality.  It requires complete reliance on God's Grace and enabling power.  So today, tomorrow, and this year, I go in Grace, endeavoring to do the impossible, for His Glory.

Word of the Year: Intentional

Challenged by one friend to simply pick a word, instead of making resolutions, I've settled on the word intentional.  Truth be told, it's been my mantra of late.  So why not make it intentional and select it intentionally for 2015?  (I'm going to be sick of the word before the year is barely begun if I keep using it this way...) 

Why intentional?  

Because it streamlines everything.  

It pulls me back to why I do what I do.  

It sifts the chaff of life and leaves the eternal.  

It strikes out gray areas. 

Intentional holds me accountable to my purpose in life -- to glorify God.  If what I do, what I say, and what I think doesn't accomplish the purpose of glorifying Him, then it's chaff.  It's out.  Sounds simple, right?  I like that.  Simple.  Back to the basics.  Back to living with intention.

As I contemplate how living intentionally will affect my day-to-day, I divide my life into categories -- categories reflected in the subtitle of this blog:  Marriage, Motherhood, and Ministry.  (I will add "Personal" to these categories because I cannot minister, mother or marry well without getting God and me right!) In the coming days, I plan to blog the list of intentional questions I am going to ask myself in each area.  (Perhaps you'll find these questions useful, too!)

So that I might say with the Apostle Paul:
"according to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing shall I be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Philippians 1:20

5's and 10's

For us, 2015 begins the year of the 10's to culminate in our 10 year wedding anniversary in 2016. Our romance began in 2005.  Consequently, I've got a wealth of yet-to-be-written blogs related to reminiscing about our romance.  I've told our story before, so this year of blogs won't be a complete re-telling, but instead will be a reflection and review of the golden decade that has been our life together.

From Christmas of 2005 - Christmas of 2014, we've been together for 10 Christmases.  That first Christmas 2005, we were engaged but didn't actually spend Christmas together.  I remember the angst of separation the most about that Christmas (read more about that here).  Living and working on the same campus meant that our friendship and dating journey had been without any real time apart prior to that Christmas.  As a result, I felt the week or so apart all the more sharply. For one who was used to and even at times preferred being alone, the shock to the pain of separation confirmed that he was my other half, that we were meant to be together for life.  That deep certainty hasn't changed over the past 10 Christmases.

Another milestone for this Christmas is that it's the 5 year mark of having a child at Christmas. We experienced 5 Christmases as a couple pre-baby, and now 5 Christmases with Jacie. Definitely, Christmas with a child is a lot more fun. The wide-eyed wonder gets better with every year, and this year was the best by far.  At four years old, Jacie really anticipates the holiday, gets into the Advent celebration, articulates the Bible truths well, and expresses joy and appreciation for gifts in a most eloquent way.

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2014

Our journey is just beginning.  10 years is significant, but still a start.  My prayer is that the foundation that has been laid over the past decade be one that holds strong and true in the decades to follow.  

My Christmas To-Do List

My mind swirls with what needs to be done:

• Baking
• Candy-making
• Making homemade gifts
• Wrapping gifts
• Shopping for gifts

I'm sure there's more -- I just can't remember it all right now.

So where's the wonder in the midst of the busyness?  Does the sometimes happy, sometimes stressful bustling busyness of Christmas automatically negate the wonder?  Where's the balance?

It's in the Advent moments like these:

• the lighting of the advent candles

• the joyful singing of an overly excited preschooler

• the full table of bowed heads thanking God for blessings

• the air of anticipation that hovers over everything mirroring the waiting experienced by the people of Israel so many years ago, wondering, waiting, expecting even as they went about their daily business

And in those moments my heart ponders the meaning and my spirit sings, 

Come, thou long expected Jesus, 

born to set thy people free; 

 from our fears and sins release us, 
                         let us find our rest in thee.  

 hope of all the earth thou art; 
                         Israel's strength and consolation, 
                          dear desire of every nation, 

 joy of every longing heart.

Our Out-of-the-Box Thanksgivings

Thanksgiving has always been an eclectic sort of holiday for me.  Living so far from extended family, my parents looked for alternative ways to make Thanksgiving meaningful - even if we as kids didn't always appreciate their intentions.

My Thanksgiving memories from yesteryear include:

•  faux Indian name tags (like Babbling Brook) at our place settings;
•  inviting over the people from church who had no place else to go either (like the mentally challenged woman who had no concept of personal space that we as kids groaned about inviting over);
• plastic tablecloths with magic-marker "I'm thankful for..." statements by each of us, carried over from year to year, a source of ribbing among us siblings as the names of the boyfriends written in indelible ink changed with the calendar year.

Fast-forward to my adult married Thanksgivings ~ Now both of our extended families live far away, so Thanksgiving is still on our own.  So the tradition, begun in my childhood, carries over, but with our own unique twists.  I admit, I'm not so handy or creative with the "fun" name tags, but we find our Thanksgivings to be a new adventure from year-to-year.

• One year, soon after we were married, we had a "very Jamaican Thanksgiving" with our close friends, cooking traditional American food alongside authentic Jamaican cuisine. 
• Another year, Thanksgiving consisted of a dozen or so international students from my ESL class clustered around our coffee table in our living room, enjoying their first-ever dinner in a real-life American home. 
• Last year, we had two Thanksgivings -- to fit in different schedules for different friends.  
• This year we enjoyed having our "adopted" college kids home with us for the week, cutting down a real tree (first time for them), and cooking turkey in a whole new way.  

So this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the legacy my parents provided -- for the example of looking beyond ourselves.  And now we're pretty excited about our tradition of non-traditional Thanksgivings.  I can't wait to see where the next Thanksgivings will take us and who will grace our table next!

Twas the Snow Day before Thanksgiving....

Twas the snow day before Thanksgiving, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse....

Except for a certain little four-year-old girl, who sprang through the house,
Crying, "It's snowing, it's snowing!" with utter delight.

She sprang to the window, exclaiming with joy,
bouncing up and down like a wind-up toy.

As quickly as she could rouse her dad and her mom,
she had them scurrying to dress her up nice and warm.

Donned with boots, gloves, coat, hat,
she fearlessly braves the cold and the wet.

Within minutes returning to bang on the glass,
with a rallying cry to join her repast!

So Mom and Dad bundled up, too,
building a snowman and admiring the view,

Of snowflakes wending their way from the skies
and a happy little girl with sparkling dark eyes.

Perspective

Perspective doesn't mean absence of pain.

                                    Perspective doesn't even mean peace.

Perspective adds some sense to what would otherwise be senseless.

It lends a small tinge of sanity in an otherwise insane experience.

I think we expect too much of perspective.

We put too much faith in its power.

Yet we need it as a barrier against dropping into the abyss of grief, loss, pain, and heartache.

We need to know that there's a bigger plan.  So perspective gives us this.  

But that's all it can give -- knowledge, awareness, recognition.  

Not solace, not comfort, not assuaging of suffering.

The rational mind seeks perspective, while the heart turns away, knowing that what it seeks can't be found there.