Another Starting Point

My little family on Easter 2013.  Miss V is so much bigger now at 1 year old.

Today is the third day of this new year and after months of gentle nudges, I'm plunging into a blogging adventure.  

I must admit I've started a blog about six times in the past 10 years.  Each time I would write two posts and then sink back into laziness.  This time I pray will be different.  I am committing to write at least one post a week and I'm stating it here so I can hopefully get a little accountability.  

Just so we can get to know each other, here is a list of my goals for both this year and this blog.

• SURRENDER

I oftentimes find myself stuck in my writing because I can't find a title that I like.  That was the case with this blog.  I felt urgings to begin again, but each time I thought "What will I call it?" and then I'd ignore those urgings for another few days.  And then today I recalled an article I'd read written by Elisabeth Elliot (who is one of my personal heroes!) called "The Essence of Femininity: A Personal Perspective". 

She says: "This is what I understand to be the essence of femininity.  It means surrender.  Think of a bride. She surrenders her independence, her name, her destiny, her will, herself to the bridegroom in marriage. This is a public ceremony, before God and witnesses.  Then, in the marriage chamber, she surrenders her body, her priceless gift of virginity, all that has been hidden. As a mother she makes a new surrender--it is her life for the life of the child. This is most profoundly what women were made for, married or single (and the special vocation of the virgin is to surrender herself for service to her Lord and for the life of the world)."

This year, with the help of this blog as a spring board for my thoughts, I desperately want to surrender the following:

• My heart, my soul, my strength and especially my MIND through study of His word to God.
• The motivations and meditations of my heart and the work of my hands at home to my husband.
• My time, my attention and my love to my sweet children.

The name of this blog, Reluctant Surrender, gives a little insight into my personal feelings about my goals.  Surrender is not something that comes easily to me.  I am headstrong, willful and often defiant.  I know that my surrender to God comes reluctantly, as if I am losing out on something special in the world.  But I know this isn't true, because total surrender to God equals absolute freedom.  I don't want to be under any illusions that my goals will be easy to achieve, but I want to name them so I have to face them each morning and make a decision to surrender myself to God, my husband and my children.

Will you help keep me accountable to this?

•  READ & STUDY the BIBLE

I know to do any surrendering I'll need to be studying and absorbing God's Word daily.  This is something I struggle with and it's incredibly frustrating to me!  So this year my goal is to read something from the Bible and journal every day.

I hope to post my thoughts about my daily readings on this blog once or twice a week.

• COOK ONE NEW MEAL a WEEK

Is it terrible to admit that I know I won't be able to meet this goal? :) I'm pregnant right now with our second daughter who is due any day now, and I'm fully expecting a few weeks where I will not be entering our kitchen for anything other than a glass of water or cup of tea!  So I say this goal now, but I'm not expecting myself to start working at it until a little later.  

That being said, I'm looking forward to sharing our table, albeit only virtually (unless you want to come over one day!).  Cooking is one of my passions and I'm so excited to make it part of this blog.