It's Accountability Time

So, my major goal to begin this year with was to GO TO BED ON TIME... uh, well, um, I've not done so well this week.  Wanna hear my lame excuses?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  Stinkin' awesome library materials anyway!  :o)  Since we had dinner guests this evening, I don't have as much time as I was planning, to tell you about some of my awesome experiences this week (because I'm going to go to bed ON TIME tonight!)  :o)  So, it'll be the abbreviated version (if that's even possible from me! Haha!)



First: Scripture reading has been happening every single day - yay!  Not as much as I'm supposed to though - not yay.  My subconscious knows that I gave myself a "head start" so for some reason, I am only a couple of days  "ahead" now (instead of the "more than a week" that I had)...  Time to pick up the slack and get a full 13 pages a day in.

Prayer is going great!  I am thrilled at some major progress I've been making at recognizing specific answers to prayer.  (Last night was an incredible experience even though it kept me awake way past bedtime - it was time well spent!)  I feel so inspired.  I even bore my testimony in church today about Heavenly Father not just hearing all of our prayers, but about actually answering those prayers - which is something I've not had a lot of testimony of in the past.  I've had experiences here and there where I felt I had received a direct answer to prayer, but not many.  I know for a fact though that many, many of my prayers have been answered, but I was probably not "in tune" enough to understand or "hear" the answers.  I've asked Father in Heaven to specifically help me to recognize answers to prayer and have begun asking more direct and specific questions, which is a novel idea to me.  A scripture that pretty much sums up my (previous) lack of faith in receiving answers from the Lord is found in the Book of Mormon:

8 And I said unto them: Have ye ^ainquired of the Lord?

9 And they said unto me: ^aWe have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.

11 Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ^aask me in ^bfaith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.

I can't even count how many times my dear friend Tara has asked me, when I'm whining about some particular problem I'm having, if I've asked the Lord and I've said  -  no.  DUH!!!  I was still thinking, even as she asked the question, "Of course not, why would I?  He won't tell me something like that."  It sounded too familiar.  "We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us."  I am so tickled at how wrong I was!!!!  He does care about the stupid little mundane things we worry over from day to day!  He wants us to pour our hearts out to Him and ask for His advice and guidance.  We don't have to do this alone!  I.  Am.  So.  Stubborn.  (Tara you can stop nodding your head and agreeing with me right now.)  I am not alone.  I have a perfect partner through this journey of life.  God wants to guide me through His paths if I'll just allow Him.  After all, He really does know better than I do.  (I know; shocking isn't it?)  Well, I'm just learning to let Him take control and see where we end up.  It's terrifying, exhilarating, liberating, awful, and awesome all at once!  I am such a control freak that this is probably the single most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.  I faced some extremely difficult choices last night in my personal prayer time.  I hope releasing this control to a loving Father in Heaven is just the beginning of a remarkable transformation from within.  I'm super excited to see where it ends up.

Since I want to be in bed on time tonight and I am extremely tired from my long and very personal visit with the Lord last night, I'll wrap this up for today.  My focus for this coming week (well for the month of January) is to go to bed on time so I can have the focus and energy I need to attempt to make the positive changes in the areas of focus I've chosen for this year, also, my daily walk with the Lord through meaningful prayer and scripture study.  School resumes tomorrow too... so there's another one of my goals - to be thorough in my children's educations.  Those are my main focal points for January.  They say it takes 21 days to form a new habit; so I'm hoping that by next month I can get to the meatier issues.  :o)  For now, sleep it is.  :o)  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Are you following along with me through the Old Testament?   You should have just finished Exodus Chapter 16 today, if so.  How are you doing on your other personal/family goals?  What has been easy?  What has been difficult so far?