Finding Joy in Your Home

Throughout the last year, I had a lot of emphasis on Spiritual Disciplines. I shared a lot about reading God's Word, different methods for doing so, tips and methods for a deeper prayer life and more. 

It was a fun year for me as I really explored what Scripture has to say on those subjects and wise advice from mature Christians in the areas of Spiritual Disciplines. And as it's the beginning of a fresh year, I think it's an excellent time to revisit this topic.

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I also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

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It's good to come back and revisit this topic of Spiritual Disciplines - that is, those disciplines like Bible reading and prayer that help us to draw closer to the Lord - because it's so easy to get off track. We get lazy, we forget, we don't make it a priority and the busyness of life crams in and shoves out those priorities. 

Before we jump into more specifics next week of how we can jump start our Spiritual growth, I want to make sure we have a firm groundwork laid for spiritual growth...especially as busy homemakers!

How do we grow in the Lord? How do we come to more maturity in Christ? And in fact, what does that even look like? 

The Wrong Responses

I think most of us know that we should be reading God's Word. That we should make a consistent habit out of it. That we should be in prayer. But the ideas of doing so can easily get lost in the shuffle of our busy day. And 1 of 2 things can easily happen

We just never develop these into consistent habits. We may go 6 months or a year or more without every reading our Bible apart from Sunday morning.

We work on developing them into a habit, but mostly so that we can check them off our list and go about our merry way. We can easily equate the idea that we should be doing these things with the idea that we are somehow buying God's favor or his merit by practicing these spiritual disciplines.

It's so easy to either ignore our spiritual disciplines on the one hand with everything we else we have going on in life, or we can turn it into something legalistic, that we just want to mark off our list so that we can feel like we are doing the right thing.

Of course, neither of these responses is correct. And I've fallen into both camps at some points in my life or another.

"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age," - Titus 2:11-12

1) Salvation is of Grace

First and foremost, Salvation is of Grace. God's grace to an unmerited and undeserving people. Nothing we did or have ever done qualifies us for salvation. God freely bestows lavish love and grace on us because Christ died on the cross for our sins and made us righteous before a holy and just God.

When we accept that grace and salvation, and repent and turn away from our sins, then we are made right before God. God has placed Christ's righteousness on us at the moment of salvation, and thus we are saved. This is called justification. We are justified before God.

That's what we first have to understand when talking about growing and maturing in Christ. We already stand before God, forgiven and accepted. But as that passage in Titus demonstrated, we are still to train ourselves up in godly matters and to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

All of this takes discipline, effort, and work.

"Used in a spiritual sense,

The last couple of weeks we have been discussing planning a lot. We've covered how to pick the best planner for you this year, how to plan for a year of SUCCESS, how to pick a word for your year to help you get focused, and how to get on track with your daily disciplines (with a free printable). 

Today we are taking all of these concepts one step further - how to make and set goals for your life and homemaking! I know this can sound like a boring topic at first, but hang in there, because it's VITAL to getting things under control in your home. 

If you want to go from survival mode in your home to actually thriving, then a key piece of that is goal planning. 

Listen to the Podcast:

I also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

If I can plan out my time, set priorities, and even craft some goals for my day and life, then it's so much easier to be diligent and effective with my time. Of course, things always come up: sick kids, you forget to put dinner in the crockpot, unexpected guests and so on. 

We can never 100% control our time, because at the end of the day, God is in control of our time and where it goes. We can plan and set goals but then hold those plans and goals loosely in our our hands and be willing and open to God changing those plans. 

Goal Setting & Our Homes

“Many times busyness is often mistakenly equated with productivity. But those words are not synonymous. Just because we're spinning our wheels, rushing from one commitment to the next, doesn't necessarily mean that we are doing anything worthwhile.” - Say Goodbye to Survival Mode by Crystal Paine

It's so easy in our culture to mistake busyness with productivity. We may run from activity to activity. Our days may be bursting at the seems with stuff, but when we get to the end of a long week or a long year and look back over what we accomplished, we realize that we've filled it with a lot of stuff that didn't really matter in the long run.

Getting Productive

I realize that those days that I don't feel productive, those days that I feel busy and running around, those days where I get to the end of a long day exhausted and tired but feeling like I didn't really accomplish much of anything...Those days were spent focusing on the wrong things. Or not really focusing at all. 

When I wake up in the morning with some clear objectives and goals (even if those goals are to get dinner on the table by 6pm and take my kids to the park for some much needed fun play time) then I feel like I can dictate where my time goes much better than if I wake up without any idea for how I want the day to go. 

And this all goes back to setting priorities and planning out goals. This topic is really much better than we could ever hope to cover in one article, but I hope to scratch the surface of it today. And I wanted to share, that for a really limited time, I have a super special New Year Bundle on sale. 

It's a collection of my very best goal setting and planning resources to help you make the most out of this year! It includes my super popular goal setting course (a video course that walks you step by step through setting and achieving goals in your home and life), a 7 part audio series on investing in yourself (a critical lesson for every homemaker to learn), and more. Hop on over to check it out - it's on super sale for a very limited time. 

1) Set Realistic Goals 

I am a dreamer and a doer - this can be a powerful combination for setting and achieving goals - but it can also lead me down the rabbit hole of setting far too many goals and g...

I am a huge planner. I love making lists, to-do's, planning out my time and setting priorities for my week. It has become a lot of what I share here in my ministry because intentionally planning can have such a profound impact on how you run and manage your home. 

The funny thing is - whenever I share anything on planning - I always get compliments on how organized and efficient I am. People assume that I am a natural born organizer and that things must just fall into place for me. 

When I hear these comments - I laugh! 

Because the truth is, that is SO not me. I am not naturally an organized, neat,  or tidy person. The current state of my home would attest to that. I am a classic right brain creative type of gal who tends to be all over the place. But I think because of that, I've had to learn how to implement systems into my home and my business...and it makes it all the difference in the world. 

Listen to the Podcast:

I also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both  

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

If I just always go with the flow and function the way that my brain wants to work - then I end up living in disaster and chaos and end up square in the middle of survival mode. Seriously, my home would be a wreck and this ministry certainly wouldn't exist. 

So for me, I've had to learn how to adapt some more left-brained tendencies of being more organized and analytical. I've had to intentionally work on my weaknesses to create a more balanced approach to my home. And surprisingly, I've fallen in love with systems, planning, and home management because it makes my home flow and function so much better. 

Learn your personality 

You might be the opposite of me. Maybe you are hyper organized, neat, and tidy...but maybe sometimes its to a fault. Where if things don't go the way you want or something is out of place, it devastates you and your day. In your case, you might need to learn to go with the flow a little more some days.

So that's my first advice: take a look at your strengths and build on those, but also recognize those areas you are weak in and might need to improve. 

For me, for my personality, and for the fact that I run a busy household of seven people...I need and CRAVE more organization in my day. If I'm not intentionally planning, then my day falls apart. 

(As a side note: If you want to get laser focused and intentional this year, then I HIGHLY suggest you pick a word for your year. You can see my word for this year and some tips and suggestions on how to pick your own.)

Defining Success

So how do we plan for a year of success? The first thing we need to address is what does "success" even mean? What does "success" look like?

Ask 10 women what success means, and you will get 10 widely different answers. And this gap becomes even bigger when we ask what success means to a Christian or a non-Christian. 

Our identity in Christ changes everything. Especially what success means in our daily life.

But before we really get into the meat of this stuff, I want to share that I have a FREE PDF guide and video for you called 5 Keys to Planning a Successful Day. It covers a lot of what we are talking about today in depth and gives you a great PDF guide for implementing it. 

Back in episode #47 of my podcast, we covered this topic of defining success in more detail. You can hop on over and read that or listen to it. 

But essentially having a successful day, year, or life doesn't necessarily mean you have a certain amount of money ...

2017 is my third year picking a word for my year. In 2012 my word was Intentional. I stuck with it for a couple of months and then it just kind of fell off my radar. 

Then in 2016, I decided to try again and my word for the year was Joy. And it had such a big impact on my year. It helped guide my focus, my goals, and my direction for the year. While we had some ups and downs, I can honestly say that my 2016 was dominated by joy. Or at least learning some really powerful lessons about joy. 

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to share some of the big lessons and things I learned from my year of joy. But today, I'm excited to share my word for 2017.

Listen to the Podcast:

I also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both :) 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Create.

I thought a lot about my word. I was first thinking about the word GRACE. I toyed with this being my word for 2016 as well. Giving grace to others, giving grace to myself, learning more about God's grace and how it plays out in our lives. I think grace will still have a big part of my year, but ultimately I landed on Create as my word for this year. 

Create

to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.

to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art oran invention.

I think this hits on several things I want to focus on this year. Here's why I chose Create as my word: 

Craving Some Creativity 

It all started in 2015. Most of that year was spent in survival mode for me. The first half of the year I had a very difficult twin pregnancy which resulted in two very happy and healthy 7lb boys. But wow, was the last three months of that pregnancy rough! Then the second half of 2015 was busy spent surviving life with four kids, 2.5 years old and younger. 

Between four little kids and a rough recovery from a c section in which I lost a ton of blood (I had no idea your blood levels could have such an effect on your energy). 

With all of that going on and then having FOUR kids, under three....the remainder of 2015 was a blur of exhaustion. Then in December of 2015 we took the gigantic leap and Jason quit his job. As of January 2016 we officially became a work at home family running our ministry here full time.

So then that moved us into 2016 which was my year of joy. My focus was to start to dig out of survival mode and learn to live with more joy in my home, in my marriage, with my kids, and in my life. Throughout all my study, I ended up developing my free course, Finding Joy in Your Home - Essential Habits for Christian Homemakers and it has since impacted over 5,000 and counting who've gone through it. 

I am so thankful that God led me to have this focus on joy throughout the year because in May, we got a gigantic surprise! As my older twins were not even 3.5 years old and my younger twins were just barely 9 months old, we found out we were expecting again. 

With my history of twins, our plan was to wait longer between these pregnancies. But God had different plans and all we could do was face our future and these close pregnancies with joy. 

Over the summer, we found out that indeed, God's plans are amazing! We are pregnant with one baby girl. And as of the day I'm writing this in early January, we are eagerly awaiting her arrival any day now. 

Heading into a New Year 

And now, as we head into 2017, I still have parts of my life that are living in survival mode,

I'm so excited to have Jason taking over my blog today. I shared my own 2017 Christian Reading Challenge for Women yesterday and I just knew that we needed to put out a men's companion challenge. If you're a man, feel free to follow along with this challenge by yourself OR wrangle your wife into the women's companion challenge. 

If you are a woman reading this, send over the link to your husband and you can then go through this challenge together! It's a great way to have a built in accountability partner. Many of the books are the same but Jason changed the feminine and homemaking categories to male equivalents. - Jami

Like Jami, I am an avid reader. Nothing gets my blood pumping more than cracking the spine on a new book and inhaling that paper and ink smell. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture. I love to read. I find it relaxing, enjoyable, and a great way to invest in myself and learn new things, or increase my knowledge of important topics.

Listen to the Podcast:

Jami and I hopped on a podcast episode to share all about the challenge, my tricks for finding the time to read in a busy schedule, a little bit about the books I picked and more! Listen below or keep scrolling down to read all about the challenge. 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

However, I am also very busy, and reading is something that easily falls by the wayside if I'm not intentional about making it happen. Thus, the creation of a reading list and challenge. What better way to keep reading on my mind than writing down a list and giving myself a timeline?

Yesterday, Jami posted her reading list, which is geared primarily toward women. So she asked me to put together a companion list to hers that would be more male-oriented. Many of the categories and book recommendations are the same, as there are LOTS of books out there that are great reading for both men and women. But I've tweaked the list to add some books on things like fatherhood, being a husband, etc. 

Also, like Jami's list, I have not included any fiction suggestions in the list. I personally love to read fiction, and would encourage others to as well, but, at least for me, picking up a novel is much easier than digging into a history text or book on theology, and so I tailored the list to non-fiction only. I highly recommend reading some fiction as well, though. Go ahead and add a few novels you've been wanting to read, or, if the 13 or 26 books on the list is already the maximum you want to commit to this year, swap out a few of the categories for fiction, keeping the total count the same. Bottom line, this list and challenge is for you, so don't hesitate to customize it to your liking. As long as it gets you reading, I've done my job.

Download the Toolkit to make it easy: 

Jami created a FREE toolkit to give you all these resources in one handy place. You will get tips and ideas on how to find the time to read as well as the full challenge and a printable sheet to keep track of your reading goals. Download for free below: 

Here's How it Works:

The list is broken into 2 levels:

13 books for the year, which breaks down to 1 book every 4 weeks

26 books for the year, equaling 1 book every 2 weeks.

Jump in on the first 13, and set your own pace. Just stick to level 1 if you don't have a lot of reading time or are new to all this, or blow through level 1 and dive into level 2 midway through the year.

Note: I recommend one particular book for each category in the list, but you can see below that I've included several other books for each category. You should choose which book you want to read for each category,