A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
George RR Martin
It may be cliche but the beginning of the year brings many of us to a place where we are contemplating what we want to invite more of and less of in our lives. I don’t particularly like the word “resolution” but I suppose in my head I make many of them every year. Even the church I attend is starting the year off with a series entitled “Reset.” There is just something so promising about the power we have to start fresh and while we may know that we can do this at any time, January 1st just beckons us as an ideal time to implement whatever it is that we feel called to change.
This year seems extra _____ (fill in the blank) because it’s the start of not just a new year but a whole new decade. Halfway into January I still have difficulty even writing 2020 it seems so crazy to me, I mean it doesn’t really feel all that long ago that I was stocking up on canned goods just in case Y2K got the best of our grids. Despite feeling like this should be a big year, I want to keep things on my list of focus and intentions to be relatively concise so I’ve narrowed it down to two things: (1) word of the year – Clean; and (2) keep reading.
This is my second year in the Ali Edwards “One Little Word” workshop and I am going to live this year with the word “Clean.” I had felt in the fall that the word “hospitality” was being put on my heart but my biggest struggle with hospitality is the fact that my house is always a mess. And then in early December, I had some tests come back and found out I have an autoimmune issue related to gluten and I need to eliminate it 100% from my diet forever. I’m still in the grieving stages of this news (currently stuck at anger) but the word clean is one that I can apply to not just my house but to my eating and other areas of my life such as my faith and those parts that are filled with clutter (e.g. social media, my email inbox, etc). I am excited to see where living with the word “clean” will take me this year.
My second focus for the year is to keep reading. Last year I completed reading 27 books including the entire Bible for the first time and just rekindled my passion for getting lost in the pages of a book. This year I set a Goodreads challenge goal of 40 but really I want to try and read 50. Here’s my rough plan for making this happen: (1) continue with my Book of the Month subscription (12 books); (2) participate in the Bloom Reading Challenge (24 books); (3) read 10 pages of day from non-fiction books during my morning quiet time (10 books including the two Bible Study books I’m working through); and (4) get back to prioritizing audible books over podcasts. As part of this reading plan, I want to track and review what I read. I’m doing this through Goodreads but I also may post a monthly compilation of those reviews here on my blog. I’m also considering doing a Bible reading challenge that would start in the summer and this time pick a different translation to read but we’ll see if that actually happens.
Obviously there is so much more that I plan to continue to do or accomplish in 2020 – but these are the two things I am planning to be super intentional about this year. What are you going to live out in 2020? If you feel like sharing feel free to leave a comment below so I can help cheer you on.
Leave a Reply