How I Want to Live in 2022
This phrase popped into my mind last July and hasn’t left since. This is how I want to live my life in 2022, and basically for the rest of my days.
I don’t have every single freedom in the world. For instance, this land won’t grow itself, and definitely not without a whole lot of hard work. I don’t have unlimited financial resources to build out every area of the farm into what I see in my dreams, or the ability to travel to a villa in Tuscany at a moment’s notice for grape-picking season, or the ability to spend all my days not working to pay the bills and instead, puttering in the garden, drinking tea, reading books, and going on adventures. But I do have a lot of freedoms, more than many. Beyond the physical freedoms of home and vocation, there’s an inner freedom of my value because of who God says I am, no matter what. And I don’t want to squander that by living fearful of taking risks, speaking out, or doing what I know I’m wired to do and care about.
“Not living timidly” means something different to all of us. What does it mean to you?
It doesn’t have to be something big or public. Most of the time, living bravely is in the small, everyday moments.
Here are a few examples…
Honest conversations I have with my girls & pushing through conflict for the sake of healthy relationship
Choices about how to raise my girls and preserve their childhoods
Choices Steven and I make about our businesses, deciding where to put our time to invest in the present and the future
Drawing honest boundaries around relationship so they can be stronger and healthier
Using my voice, even when I really, really would rather just stay in my fake bubble of “peace” (enneagram 9 problems) - it’s choosing to go to the hard places, to speak up for what I know is right
Fighting for the freedoms of others
And yes, it’s even stepping out in faith with the book that I painstakingly wrote, edited, and honed that will soon be read publicly (all the details are coming SO soon, promise!). Timidity is definitely not going to work for me anymore, as if it ever did.
For all of us, it’s carrying a peace in what we were created to do and doing it, no matter the outcome, as an outpouring of our God-given gifts.
I don’t have this even remotely perfect, because “not living timidly” is honestly not my forté. But I’m learning. And it’s something I’m keeping on the forefront of my mind and aiming for in 2022.
Because I have freedom. I have a voice. And I don’t want to squander them.
Here’s the above image as a phone wallpaper if you’d like to save it to your phone. 🌻
