In The Husband Project, she gives a 21-day plan of daily projects that help a wife do something special daily to love her husband. I was intentional about it and did the best I could with a baby and twin toddlers. The neat thing about it was that Aaron didn't change, but my attitude did. It should have been called The Wife Project because after 21 days of focusing on being a better wife, I became one.
I now have The Me Project. I didn't ponder very long before I purchased it. Once I got it home, I faltered a little bit. I had assumed it was doing 21 fantastic things for myself to remind me of what a wonderful creature God made me. I had anticipated pedicures, taste-testing lots of flavors of jelly beans to find my special favorite, etc. Not so much. Instead, it's about making real goals and pursuing them.
The premise is that God has more for us than being moms, wives, volunteers, and all the other hats we wear. Deep inside each of us lies a dream of living fully in Him and chasing after and achieving that dream with reckless abandon.
She challenges the reader to get a journal and write a 50/50 list--a list of 50 goals you want to accomplish in the next 50 years. After that's done, you choose one of those goals and follow the a 21-day plan to achieve it.
Hmmm. I have 3 boys under 5 years old. The thought of coming up with 50 goals is pretty daunting. I have to be honest here--my big hesitation with the project is a fear of failure. I think of myself as a pretty courageous person, but I married a man who is rock solid. He knows what he likes, doesn't like and he's very good at taking time to relax and just be.
I, on the other hand, run around like a chicken with my head cut off and find resting and relaxing very difficult. I have hobbies, but they don't recharge me the way I think they should. I know I have peace in Christ, but somehow feeling that peace eludes me. Instead I feel unsettled, fretful or worried. I'm like a pot of water that's always simmering, just waiting to boil. I want to be like Aaron--a pond that's completely still.
That's somewhat tangential, but at the root, I know I chase after lots of bunnies that really shouldn't be chased. I'm learning to say no and focus more on what God is calling me to in this season, but it's tricky. I want to be the very best Laura I can be and it's just hard to know who she is. In seeking my identity, I have this fear that I'll fad away and become a shorter, more petite version of Aaron.
He loves the outdoors--hunting, fishing, building things and being dirty. Very similar to our sons. God cut me from a different cloth. I want to like fishing, but putting a grasshopper on a hook is icky. The fish out of water flopping around is gross. Guns are loud and the scary.
As the mom of boys, I've had to get over a lot of my prissiness, but at my core, I don't want to become a huntress who can live successfully off the land. I want to be beautiful, enjoy wonderful food, the laughter of friends, and be clean while doing it.
I shared these concerns with Aaron. He was wonderfully understanding and supportive. Sometimes I feel like by staying home, my mind has just melted away and the qualities that made me so unique when he met me--being able to speak Spanish fluently, loving Jane Austen and her novels, being able to compare any story to Don Quixote and talking about it at length, singing too loud while I play the piano even louder just because--just melted away with the craziness of raising my boys.
But it's time to take charge again of me. Christ came so that I could have life more abundantly, not for me to cower in a corner.
I'm going to make a 50/50 list, chose one goal and follow the 21-day plan. I've decided to use this blog as a way to chronicle my journey. I won't blog every day or share all the details, but I'll hit the high points as I go.
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