As we begin a new year, I invited guests to reflect on what their #dailystep #towardthegreater would be for 2020. Today’s post is from Kathy Swaar. I met Kathy through Christianne Squires’ book writing course. I love her outlook here as a “recovering planner” and this idea of choosing a word for the year because I do that too! Here’s her step:
“Not just A new year, but a new decade. It feels So. Momentous.
As a Recovering Planner, someone who’s hardwired for organization, I’ve had to resist the temptation to make copious notes and lists, to plot and plan each day. In the past year I noticed I’d been using my extensive to do lists and meticulously crafted schedule to (try to) control my circumstances and my response to them.
It doesn’t work. Life happens anyway, regardless of what I scribbled on that planner page. And so intently focused on my plans, there was little room for recognizing where and to what the Holy was calling me.
I can’t re-wire myself into an improv expert overnight, but one small daily step I’m taking to reset my brain #towardthegreater – to shift the focus from my plans to “not my will, but Thy will” – is to choose a word to guide me through the year. I dig into its meanings, then, in my morning quiet time, see where it shows up in scripture and what God might be saying to me through it. I never know where my word will take me, or what I will find there. It’s a daily exercise in letting go – a concrete way to practice embracing the mystery of the Holy, to follow the promptings of the Spirit, to open my heart and hands to receive the gifts and graces of the God whose “ways are not my ways and whose thoughts are not my thoughts.”
-Kathy Swaar, @kathy_swaar
[Trained and commissioned as a Lay Pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA), Kathy served congregations in central Illinois and the larger church for nearly twenty-five years. An Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois – Springfield, she spent ten years teaching basic helping skills and communications classes for the Criminal Justice program. As President and CEO of W-K Swaar Enterprises, Inc., she currently oversees management of her family’s farming operation in Central Illinois. Now an author and blogger, visit https://www.kathyswaar.com/new-blog to read Kathy’s latest blog, follow her on Instagram @kathy_swaar, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kathy.swaar.]
