Just a little taste: Peace

I love a clean fresh start, I love new beginnings and fresh possiblities. I don't always love the process of ending opportunities, or saying good bye to comfortable places in my life. Sometimes it's hard to see past the warm and cozy seat by the fire, and understand that while you don't know what lies outside the front door, it just might be even more fabulous than your warm and cozy seat, and if not better at least worth learning about and exploring. And who's to say you can't return from time to time to snuggle up next to the fire for a bit? Not me.

This new year brings lots and lots of changes-big and small to my life & my family's lives. Lots of chaos, lots of swirling emotions, and a great big kick right off that cozy seat and out the front door to discover what's out there waiting for us. Whether or not I want to find out.

For most people the new year also brings to every desk a list of goals or resolutions on ways we will reinvent and improve ourselves. Becoming everything we ever dreamed of. Then the rush of life takes over, and slowly we lose the enthusiasm amidst the toil of everyday life. At least that's what always used to happen to me. So I stopped writing new year's resolutions. I found a new way of starting fresh each year, and it really works for me. It's changed my life. Seriously.

I simply choose one word to focus on (or refocus as the case may be), and it becomes my mantra for the year. Here are the last couple of years if you want to see what I mean 2009 and in 2010 . I can't honestly say I perfected either area, but I sure did improve, and even more I found what I was looking for. It's been an interesting evolution, I often find my "new" word is simply an elevation or more refined version of the previous year's mantra.

That's never been more true than this year. You see, in 09 I wanted to LISTEN and in 2010 I wanted a more active role, and I decided to SEEK. What comes next? PEACE That's really what I wanted all along, I just didn't realize it. First I had to learn to LISTEN to what was really happening, and see past the motion and excitement of the world. Then I needed to be proactive, I needed to search, ponder and truly SEEK out what I needed to do.

Now, now I need PEACE. I want to be at PEACE with myself, at PEACE with the Lord, at PEACE with my spouse and my children, and at PEACE with my life.

Maybe it's because life is so chaotic, and has been for the last couple of years, never knowing what was coming next, always carefully balancing on the edge, desperate to find my path and keep from toppling over the cliff. I can honestly say 2010 was the single most challenging year of my life, and if you want to extend it 2009 wasn't such a cherry on top either.

So how does listening and seeking bring me to peace? I understand now I wouldn't know how to find PEACE if I hadn't first learned to listen and then learned to seek. I understand now, or am beginning to, that the PEACE I seek comes from living in Harmony with the Holy Spirit, and submitting my will to my Father in Heaven. I can never find the peace I so desperately need if I am not listening to the Holy Ghost, and to the desires of my family's hearts, not just their words. I must also take an active role in creating this PEACE in my life and in my home. It will not simply come, I must seek it out with every choice I make, every action I take must be focused on the end goal of having PEACE.

So it is my goal to remind myself that I seek PEACE in all I do. I crave harmony in my home and the strength that comes from knowing I am living in harmony with my Savior's teachings and my Father in Heaven's will. These things can only be found from finding His Peace.