A while ago my cousin, Angie, started doing a word for the year. I thought it was such a great idea I decided I was going to do that every single year from then on. I had a good solid two years of words... the first year was the best by far with remembering that was my motto and focus of the year. Year two rolled around and I can't even tell you what word I picked.
Last January Matt and I sat down and made some family goals and picked a year for 2013. We decided to focus on Unity with each other in our marriage and unity as a couple and as individuals with Heavenly Father. I hate to admit that I've kind of slacked on following through as enthusiastically as I did that first year I started this, but I will say that having our paper with goals and the reminder to focus on unity hanging by our light switch in our bedroom has made me stop and think several times. It was a good reminder to stop and reevaluate priorities.
This year has been difficult to think of a good word that would encompass what we need to work on both as a married couple and now as parents. So we ended up doing a scripture. Which is even better! Actually it was only difficult for me, I guess, because as soon as I brought it up to Matt in family home evening last night he lit up and flipped right to this scripture!
Anyway... without further adieu, (is that how the saying even goes?) the Coffin Family theme for 2014 is
Alma 37:37 "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
Matt felt like this would be perfect (and I agreed) because we have some pretty life changing decisions coming up within the next year. We've already started to see a lot of 'little' decisions with jobs and changing things with his scholarships that we definitely want to make sure we're picking the right paths on. Matt will be applying to PA schools after this semester and doing interviews and selecting a school over the summer. We're going to be making lots of totally new parenting decisions and learning how to be parents in t minus 2 months! Of course, we've always felt like we should make decisions through prayer and counseling with the Lord, but it seems like a much bigger life line with all of the new adventures looming ahead.
I've always really liked that we believe in having our Heavenly Father involved in making decisions because it takes any fights or tension out of it. If we're disagreeing on a decision when just discussing it, it doesn't matter because we always come together after we pray about it. Hooray for being unified through the Lord. :) (It reminds me of the 'triangle of marriage'. Matt and I are the bottom corners, and the Lord is the top corner. It's a three way covenant that we've made and the closer Matt and I come to the Lord as individuals, the closer we grow together too!)
We decided to focus on two main points of this scripture. Obviously, the first is to really work on counseling with Heavenly Father in all of our decisions and aspects of our life.
The second is "let thy heart be full of thanks unto God". I've worried that I'll be one of those really scary first time moms who lets the stress and sleep deprivation turn me into a momzilla. I can see myself going all control freak over how Matt or others do things for or with Jaden, and that's not who I want to be. We're both learning, and Jaden is both of ours. So, I thought that if we could really focus on having a grateful attitude we'd be less likely to eat each other alive. ;) Always a good thing when trying to learn how to be in charge of a cuddly new human.
I'm determined that this year will be the year that ranks right up there with the first time I did this. I'll look back over all the learning moments we had because of our theme next January, and feel lots of warm fuzzies when I compile all my testimony building stories from the year we actually stuck with our family theme. ;)
So happy new years everyone! Kudos for coming up with goals (even if your goal was to not make any goals this year... that was mine for a year or two, not gonna lie.) and good luck in this new year!
Anyway... without further adieu, (is that how the saying even goes?) the Coffin Family theme for 2014 is
Alma 37:37 "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."
Matt felt like this would be perfect (and I agreed) because we have some pretty life changing decisions coming up within the next year. We've already started to see a lot of 'little' decisions with jobs and changing things with his scholarships that we definitely want to make sure we're picking the right paths on. Matt will be applying to PA schools after this semester and doing interviews and selecting a school over the summer. We're going to be making lots of totally new parenting decisions and learning how to be parents in t minus 2 months! Of course, we've always felt like we should make decisions through prayer and counseling with the Lord, but it seems like a much bigger life line with all of the new adventures looming ahead.
I've always really liked that we believe in having our Heavenly Father involved in making decisions because it takes any fights or tension out of it. If we're disagreeing on a decision when just discussing it, it doesn't matter because we always come together after we pray about it. Hooray for being unified through the Lord. :) (It reminds me of the 'triangle of marriage'. Matt and I are the bottom corners, and the Lord is the top corner. It's a three way covenant that we've made and the closer Matt and I come to the Lord as individuals, the closer we grow together too!)
We decided to focus on two main points of this scripture. Obviously, the first is to really work on counseling with Heavenly Father in all of our decisions and aspects of our life.
The second is "let thy heart be full of thanks unto God". I've worried that I'll be one of those really scary first time moms who lets the stress and sleep deprivation turn me into a momzilla. I can see myself going all control freak over how Matt or others do things for or with Jaden, and that's not who I want to be. We're both learning, and Jaden is both of ours. So, I thought that if we could really focus on having a grateful attitude we'd be less likely to eat each other alive. ;) Always a good thing when trying to learn how to be in charge of a cuddly new human.
I'm determined that this year will be the year that ranks right up there with the first time I did this. I'll look back over all the learning moments we had because of our theme next January, and feel lots of warm fuzzies when I compile all my testimony building stories from the year we actually stuck with our family theme. ;)
So happy new years everyone! Kudos for coming up with goals (even if your goal was to not make any goals this year... that was mine for a year or two, not gonna lie.) and good luck in this new year!
What a wonderful goal.....You can't possibly go wrong with that one. I know that having a gateful heart is very pleasing to our Father in heaven and that if we consentrate on our blessings we are rich in contentment, and if we are ungrateful we suffer the poverty of endless discontentment...Elder Bednar taught that in our last general conference.
ReplyDeleteYou two are so awesome!!
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