I want to have abundant life

 

Here we are at the end of 2014 and I realize that I have let another year go by without "living".

I'm not even sure what exactly I mean by that, only to say that it seems like this year has just sorta "happened".  Get up, go to work, go home, go to bed, get up and do it all over again. Pay bills... Go to church...one foot in front of the other.

There was a time not so long ago when life was so overwhelming that the very best I could do was to put one foot in front of the other...just survive....don't give up...just get thru one more day. It seems that this mindset has lingered far too long. I am well. I am whole. It is time to start living again.

"Living" got lost somewhere between marriage and babies and cancer and work and laundry. I  doubt that I am the only one who feels like this.

I so admire those women who seem to squeeze as much as possible out of each day, but I am not one of them... and I want to be one of those women.

I have "put one foot in front of the other" for so long that I honestly don't even know what "living" will look like for me. Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I suppose this train of thought started when I remembered that one of my 2014 resolutions was to mark 5 things off my bucket list. I broke out the ol bucket list and looked over it for things that I'd done this year. I did mark 4 off and will be able to mark another off before New Year's Eve. (That will be the ONLY resolution I kept!) Still, there were LOTS of things on the list that I could have marked off, had I only been striving to get as much out of this year as possible. If I'd been focused on making memories instead of just getting through each day, more things would be crossed off. If I'd looked for opportunities to make a difference, opportunities to do something big, opportunities to "live" instead of just getting by...

(sigh)

I'm really tired of just getting by.

 

After I looking over my bucket list and lamenting over how many things are not marked off and how time is starting to run out on some of them (like rock climbing or rafting the Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon), a friend told me about a friend of hers who makes a list of "100 things" each December. 100 things she did and things that happened that year, good and not so good. I'm not sure I can even think of 100 things I did this year. I'm not sure that I did 100 things worth remembering.

(sigh)

I want the rest of my years to be note-worthy.

I want to live big for God.

I want to see lives radically changed, including mine.

I want to have breath taking moments.

I want to start in 2015.

 

Some think that you cannot live 100% sold out for Jesus Christ and  live life to the fullest, push the envelope, expand one's boundaries, and explore new things...

 

In John 10:10, Jesus says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

 

I do not believe for one minute that Jesus' idea of abundant life is simply putting one foot in front of the other, barely getting by, or just surviving. I don't think that any of Jesus' followers in the New Testament could say that their lives were boring. I want to live life to the fullest. I want to drink it all in, both good and bad.

 

So, as the New Year approaches, I am going to spend time over the next few days working on my Resolutions for 2015. I'm also going to make a list of 100 things that happened in 2014. I may even post all of it here.