Happy New DECADE!

I woke up this morning filled with the inspiration and the awe of possibility that only a new years day can bring. I walked around the house, coffee in hand, already busy trying to begin working toward accomplishing some of my standard new years resolutions having to do with organization, and family and diet ...

That is when it hit me.. It is not only a new year, but a new DECADE. ( I know, I'm a little slow. You probably realized this a long time ago.) This is a perfect time to reflect, and then to look ahead not for the year, but for 10 or even more.

I think about where I was at the beginning of the last decade, and realized so much has changed, yet so much has stayed the same. I was still in my early 30's, had a husband, a 9 year old, an infant, a job. I don't remember the specific resolutions for that year, and I don't remember thinking in terms of my goals for the next decade, century, or millennium. Perhaps that is some of the maturity that comes in the 30's -- the realization that we cannot only think about how our accomplishments affect us as individuals, but in also how they affect those around us.

Yes -- this year I shall make New Decade Resolutions. They shall be more about my legacy, than my accomplishments. They shall be more abstract, and less measurable. They shall be more spiritual, less superficial.

And, since New Years resolutions are stated the first day of the new year, I think I shall give myself the first year of the new decade to reflect, ponder, and anticipate what will be most important to me in the next 10 years.

I think about the milestones that I am looking forward to the next 10 years and wonder how they will affect and effect my legacy? How much will my New Decade Resolutions have to do with Tyler completing college and entering the 'real' world, the girls completing high school and entering college. How much will the amount of money in the bank or number on the scale or the size of the clothes or the number of wrinkles around my eyes have to do with what I really want to accomplish? It has so much more to do with my relationships -- with my husband, and with my children and with the world. It is about the people that my children become, and the way world sees me and the way I see myself.

It has everything to do with how God sees me.

And so, I am off to work on my new years resolutions and to begin pondering my new decade resolutions.

Happy New Decade! Be blessed.