One word for the new year

We had a sweet Christmas, full of fun and family, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

ElizaJane loved her Marcy Monkey!

Kartwright showed us all how it's done with his "flow board", amazing!

Uncle Bill was here to share some laughs.

Uncle Kenneth, tried his feet on one of the boys Indo boards.

You can see all the Christmas loot in the background.

Here's Grandma Susan with the girls.

Spider man even made an appearance!

The boys had special "jammies" too!

Haven had a special delivery of an almost real baby.

Michael's father and his sis Deb and her husband Dave, were there also, to share Christmas dinner. I hate that I didn't get more pictures, but frankly I was in the kitchen most of the time. It was another Christmas to put into the memory books.

Today I was reading THIS, and thinking about THIS, and several other posts on picking a word for 2009 to inspire more purposeful living based on one word choice. I think it is an interesting concept, and caught site of it last year when I picked the word "encourage" for 2008.

We have had a year to remember, with much heartache, and change. The minutes slip away faster then I can even count, and they turn to days, which turn to weeks, that are then months. Months quickly revolve into years, and before you know it it will become a lifetime! Time swept away, never to be retrieved. Each of my living children are another year older now. Haven moves into double digits this year, Dakota will be an official adult at 21 soon, as just days later my baby will move eons passed toddler ville, and solidly into school age at 5, and Kartwright will be 17, just a slim 12 months from the large milestone number 18. I will never see them again at those younger ages, just as I will never see myself again at 43.

It is a bitter sweet reality that none of us can do anything to change, and why would we, as that is the way our sweet Lord has ordained it. What if, however, we could make those minutes, days, weeks, and months count for more this year, then they have in the past? What if by some planning, instead of just slipping away, we could live them perhaps more intentionally? what if?

That is my word for 2009, intentional. I want to live each moment with more intention, and thus each day, and in turn each week, and each month, and that in turn will produce a whole year of intentional living. By intentional living, I mean, something opposite of what my cyber mentor Nancy Leigh Demoss called drifting, which is our natural tendency, the tendency to just let life happen. My 2008 was full of "stuff" happening to me, that was out of my control. No amount of wishing, or trying, or believing, could have changed my circumstances. Life happens, career choices are made, families are up rooted, people take their own lives, precious children die, parents age, markets crash, and jobs are lost.....and in the midst of all that, God is in control, and he is not surprised by anything. Amongst all of that "life" there is the mundane happening of every moment, day, week and month, and there are choices to be made, and when we don't make a choice, then well, we make a choice don't we?

So for me, 2009 will be a year of intention. I don't know exactly how I will continue to cope with the losses that my family has endured this year, Crockett's life is missed, for me that reality looms over head in a way that makes everything else seam like frivolity, but I have confidence that my God will sustain me, as he always has. I don't know where we will be called to go next, or if we will even be called at all, but that does not arrest the need for us to keep on living, and doing, and serving, and blessing, and loving, and growing. And that is exactly what I intend to do, and I will do it intentionally. I plan to make intentional choices in the way I choose to spend my time, care for my family, contribute to my local church body, stimulate my mind, buffet my body, and love my husband.

My word for 2009 is INTENTIONAL.

What will your word be this year?