Getting Back On Track

Ah, the lazy, hazy days of summer.  A little too hazy and humid this year for my taste, but still, they were lazy days.  And, if I'm honest, they were way too lazy.

Summer is the break we all need, right?  For as long as I can remember, my life has been divided into "school year" and "summer break."  Even now that I've been out of college and working at a "real job" for 13 years(!), that hasn't changed.  Most years I welcome the break and the change in pace.  This year, it's thrown me for a real loop.

I began the year with wonderful and lofty goals.  Goals I've been longing to achieve for most of my adult life--writing more, reading my Bible more, eating better, losing weight.  They have always required more discipline than I could tap into in my feeble brain, so I've always failed.  This year was going to be different.

And it was!  For the first month, I did great.  The second and third months wavered, but I still tried and was still committed.

Then, those lazy, hazy days of summer arrived.  The kids got a break from their routine, and I took one too.

Now, I find myself nearing the last quarter of the year, weighing the same as I did when I started, eating poorly, my gym card gathering dust, my Bible reading plan crossed off through June, and my blog updated once a week . . . maybe.  (I am ahead on my book reading goals, but I'm not sure anyone other than the Grand Rapids Public Library should be proud of that.)

So now I find myself trying to get back on track.  A series of books I just finished, the Chaos Walking trilogy, truly does contain some perfect lines (thanks, Amy), and one of those weaves its way through each of the three books: "It isn't whether you fall down, it's whether you get back up."  So, here I am.  The measure of Beka in 2012 isn't whether I fell down.  I've fallen down every year that I've tried to better my life.  The measure of Beka in 2012 is that I'm getting back up.  I've never done that before with these goals.  The other measure is that I'm doing it bathed in prayer and begging God to drag me back up.  Maybe I learned more by falling down than I would have by staying on my own two feet.  Isn't that always the way?

So, here I am.  At the demands of my dear friend Julie (who won't read this, because she never does), I am not looking backwards at where I would be today if I hadn't fallen.  I'm looking forward at where I can get by keeping my hand in His and moving.  I have a plan to continue (and finish!) my journey through the Bible in 2012.  I will accomplish it, because I want to, and because when I don't want to, I'm begging God to make me want to.  I have a plan to write more--maybe on my blog or maybe on secret projects to get DearEditorFriend off my back--and I have a plan to eat better.  I need to make a plan (ie. a schedule, so I don't just sit and watch TV) to work out and still manage to get my house clean and my kids to school in time.

It's a busy life, to be a mother.  It's a busier life, to be a mother with a dream.  So when I fall down, I'm going to get back up.  Because it's a sad life to spend all your days in the lazy, hazy days of summer.