This is the last post in our series on focus areas for 2017. You can read about my other areas of prayer discipline and discipleship here and write, speak, teach and make a dent in our debt here. The last two areas on my focus list this year are: intentional time with the kids and meal planning, cooking healthy.

INTENTIONAL TIME WITH THE KIDS

I am a very structured and routine person. Shawn is probably even more so. We love schedules, but we also love when nothing is on them. We intentionally don’t let the kids get involved in too many things. We protect our time. We prefer a few quality things over many quantity things. Although I believe we do that right, sometimes we don’t take advantage of that free time at home. We just exist in that free time because we’re not intentional about doing anything else. Homework, chores, dinner, baths, bedtime. That doesn’t sound very fun, does it? Before Madison came along, we had a “family night” every week. It usually involved cards or board games with the three of us, but it always consisted of laughter and great conversation. I miss that. Sure, we still have laughter and great conversation amidst the schedule we keep, but what about a time for just that? I don’t know if family night is the answer to this intentional time, but I just know that if you aren’t intentional about it, it won’t happen. My kids may not always want to hang out with me, but right now – they do. Lord, help me embrace that now!

“Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 4

MEAL PLAN, COOK HEALTHY

Eating healthy is so easy and fast! Did you read that sentence twice thinking I made a typo? What I really wanted to say was “said no person ever” at the end of that statement but isn’t that so overused? If I thought that statement was true, it wouldn’t be on my focus area list.

The Clean Eatery in Little Rock has been a God-send this past year to help our family eat healthy while I figure this whole thing out. But it’s time that I start to take back some of that responsibility on my own to serve my family. To teach my kids how to eat healthy and to prepare healthy foods to empower them once they are no longer under our roof to take care of their bodies. This is not about weight or being a certain size. This is about putting quality fuel in our bodies, and that quality fuel is eating real food.

“…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

What all of these six focus areas really come down to, though, is being intentional. That may only be in the title of one of them, but it applies to them all. I’m not going to be able to just sit on the couch and these magically happen. So I keep a written copy of all of these, loose, in my journal so that I will see them daily. I may not focus on every single one, every single day, but I will focus on something.

Are there areas in your life that need focus and intentional time? Well, what are you waiting for? Start that intentional time right now and figure out what those focus areas need to be!