Day 73 ---The End in Sight

It has been a very interesting season of my life walking through my days with this experiment in the back of my head and in my thoughts...... And now the end is in sight. I haven't written about my experience for a while now. I have come to write at different times and then gotten distracted or actually felt like I wasn't supposed to.... some of these days have been personal ones when I have focused in on more of who I want to truly be and then some were just regular days filled with responsibility and service.

Today has been different. As I come back to write... as I come back to express what these days and this season have meant for my life.... I truly don't recognize the person who I was back on December 16. Possibly because for the most part she doesn't exist anymore..... I am more focused on who I am and what I want for my life and lives of my family.... I am more patient (not the only one saying that) and a general calmness has taken root and has started to work its way deep into all that I am......

But what the third quarter of this experiment truly taught me is to hold fast to that which you know that you are called towards.... Life will come at you with all of its urgencies and if you don't have a place within to hold them at bay you will get swept beneath its waves. I have learned the importance of keeping focused and spending the time to visit and revisit that which I want to accomplish... whether as a woman, wife, mom, writer or photographer.... I hold fast to my dreams and my goals ... looking at them ... reworking them .... having written them down I read them frequently.. remind myself of them ... assess myself using them as my grading criteria.....

I am back in school. A new phase in my life that began at the onset of this experiment in quite the most unexpected way. But every time I get an assignment I print it off... read it thoroughly through for the first time.... grab my highlighter and pen and go back over it and mark and circle all of its requirements.... I then go to task to accomplish that assignment. Step by step I read each direction .. checking the grading rubric... making sure that everything that is asked is done.... When I have finished the assignment I go back over my work and compare it to all that the instructor put forth.... diligently and purposefully I review and review to make sure that all that was required has been completed. Well... I now apply that same focused energy to my life and my goals....

I see and hear of people that have as their main goals in life or as an organization to be a certain way or accomplish a certain task.... however they get derailed because they allow the urgencies of any given day or of life in general to steal that from them.... Instead of deciding for themselves every day (sometimes numerous times within a day) the who, what, when, where of life they allow the situations to dictate that for them...... Before long they find themselves far away from the things that they actually wanted to accomplish..... Yes, sometimes our goals and dreams change but this isn't that.... this is not putting first things first and being attentive and careful to focus on what is the expressed vision or goal.....

There are things that I know that I want now more than ever.... dreams and desires that I hold up to Heaven and whisper my prayers over..... I have had a taste of the hard work and sacrifice it will take but I know that I am to walk this walk.... and I know that I am to be a protector of the path through my daily choices and actions.... I commit to myself to do just that and to walk in such a way that is fully conscious of where I am heading... Habakkuk says " Write the vision and engrave it so plainly upon tablets that everyone who passes may [be able to] read [it easily and quickly] as he hastens by." I don't want it to be said that I didn't accomplish what I set out to do because I got distracted and wasn't diligent to protect the vision embedded upon my heart......