GOAL!

We have been on a journey the last few years. There are times I look back and can only marvel. Perhaps I wax on too much about it, but I still can't believe where we are compared to three years ago.  Three years ago we were on the brink of divorce and we moved back to my hometown.  I have to admit that part of my thought well if this scheme doesn't work oh well, at least I will be near my family.  The fact that things keep getting better just blows me away.  

As I mentioned in the last post, this summer was a challenge, some bad things happened.  However we got through them and it has helped us to refocus.  The hubs and I  have been  and have been working on a bible study with one of our pastors.  We get homework and it has been a progression of steps.  Most recent was goal setting.  I laughed because I have often said this was one of our biggest problems.  We just kinda floated along until everything fell apart and then tried desperately to put it all back together and we couldn't it. (At least not by ourselves.)

Sometimes it means making unconventional calls.  Like me moving away from a going nowhere temp job to my own business in this economy. Long term it will pay off, short term it is hard.  I miss the security of a weekly paycheck, although I don't miss the cubicle.  Love picking my kids up from school and not fretting about taking the needed time off to take care of them.  I see a difference in our family.  

One of the jobs I picked up was maintaining the soccer fields for our local youth league for the fall.  It entailed mowing and striping the fields each week.  The first time we striped we took string and strung out the lines for the fields painted on those, after that as long as I could see the old stripe, I could just go over the old one.  Seemed simple enough but I found it really hard to keep my lines perfectly straight.  I would think I did a great job and then turn around and see where I had a little zig or how I gradually pulled one way or another.  It was really frustrating. 

One day I had some help from one of the dads as we were trying to string out a field to paint it. He just eyeballed the lines with stringing it and I swear his lines were straighter than mine.  I would get really aggravated at myself. By the last week I had figured a few things out and was painting decent lines for the most part.  The trick for me was to keep my eye on the end of the line and to occasionally glance at my current location but mostly to keep my eye on the end goal.  Also I had to keep walking with my feet side by side at a natural pace, instead of putting one in front of the other.  

Maybe it was just all the time spend out there by myself but I couldn't help thinking this was such a perfect analogy of what we are doing in life.  On our goal list is budgeting, studying, prayer, eating dinner together, practicing kindness, consulting the others opinions, working together toward the same goal, holding each other accountable.  We often fall short and get a few wobbles in our lines and only seem to keep it perfect for a short while, but then we sight up our end goal and keep going.

Not perfect, I can see where I corrected from a mistake the week before,  but I am okay with it. 

Do you and your spouse have clear family goals?