Purpose!

Choosing to live intentionally isn't always easy. In fact, might I dare say it isn't easy at all? Sometimes what is easy, is to fall back into the ruts that we were in before. It's just hard to focus on staying out of them. So we, sometimes let ourselves drift back into the comfortable, the known, and we forget to be intentional.  

My word for this year is "Intentional". I really felt like I needed to focus more on taking care of me. I wrote about it in this post and this post. Some days I rock the intentionality, other days, not so much. Some days I find myself drifting back into the ruts. My ruts weren't necessarily wrong, or bad, or harmful, but there wasn't any "me" focus-ness in them. Intentionality is a lot of work, at least until it becomes natural, until it becomes a habit and even then, it takes work. But that was part of the definition of intentional wasn't it? Done on purpose, done deliberately. 

One thing I did at the beginning of the year was print this awesome sheet from Ann Voskamp. I printed the "uncolored" version because I wanted to color it myself. It's a reminder to me to be intentional, to have a purpose everyday. Some days I forget to look at it, some days I just am tired (like today) and I don't feel like I was intentional at all, and that's okay. As long as I recognize it and make the necessary adjustments and don't just stay stuck in the ruts. To remember that we are amazing! I encourage you to go to her site, sign up and print the sheet...then really take time to quiet your heart and mind and ask yourself what you want to purpose to do in each area. What is in your heart to do? What have you felt led to do? My list may change throughout the year because maybe I'll sense a need to change, or maybe I'll feel like I really accomplished one thing. 

One thing I know is that when I have the right mindset, and I partner with my Papa God and resource from who I am in Him I can rest and know that life will be full and abundant, even on the days I end up in one of the ruts. It doesn't change who I am or who He is. Yay!

I also printed a few other coloring pages, one from Crystal Paine's site, MoneySaving mom. It was created by another blogger Lisa at CreativeLei. The other page I now cannot remember where I printed it from. I love quotes, sayings and phrases, so I plan to print other pages and keep them handy and we also got our daughter some coloring books with quotes that I think I'll make photo copies for myself. 

Have you purposed in your heart to make some changes? Are you trying to be intentional in certain areas? Do you find yourself in the ruts? Keep going, the nice thing about ruts is there's always a way out of them!

With Joy UNquenchable,