New Year Resolutions 2007 - BIG!

This is the time of year when people create lists of New Year Resolutions. I suppose its obligatory that anyone who has a personal blog should post that list online. I've never been a big fan of New Year Resolutions. Usually these are just lists that people create so they can forget about them even faster than they created them.

I'm absolutely surprised as to how many people are visiting this site and following my story. Over the last few days, I've had over 50 unique people visit this blog each day. I could never have imagined that anyone would be so interested in my story and what I'm going through. I appreciate the comments and e-mails that you've been sending and encouraging me. To those of you going through similar things, I would encourage you to stay strong and not to lose hope.

Since I'm not a fan of New Year Resolutions, I debated not posting at all, but since you've taken the time to be interested in my life, I feel like I'd be letting you down if I didn't. Instead of New Year Resolutions, I'm going to call my list "New Year Dreams, Goals and Prayers." As many of you know, starting a week or two ago, I really refocused my life and started working towards my goals again. So I already have a head start. But I'll provide an abbreviated list here.

New Year Dreams, Goals and Prayers

Personal

• To continue to seek God and to strengthen my walk with Him. In the last few weeks, I've really been learning to rely on Him and wait on His timing instead of trying to make things happen when I want them to. This has been a difficult lesson for me and I pray that He will continue to strengthen me in this area.



• To be a better father to my children. Namely, I need to spend more time with them and more regularly.



• To continue to improve myself overall. I've grown so much in the past month through counseling and coaching and through books, seminars and programs. But the more I grow, the more I realize I have a lot more to change about myself. I'm so encouraged that others are seeing these changes in me already without me even having to tell them. I pray that I continue down this path and that my testimony continues to grow.

Career

• To be more organized and more effective as a manager at my employer which I just returned to. I used to have teams that really spoke highly of me and appreciated me as a manager and as their boss. I pray that this will be increased even more in the upcoming year.



• To refocus myself on my education. My Political Science, Pre-Law studies are half complete, but I still have a long ways to go. Additionally, I need to refocus myself on continuing to accumulate the credits necessary to qualify as a Certified Public Accountant once I finish my bachelors degree.



• To launch a new business this year. I have some ideas that I believe will be successful. In fact given 2 to 3 years, I'm confident I can outdo my last highly successful business. I pray that I'll find a new name in a reasonable amount of time or that the hostilities between my wife and I will pass so that I can safely utilize the business I formed in 2006 just before we separated.



• To continue learning Spanish and to be able to carry a conversation in Spanish by the end of the year. Last night (notice I didn't say yesterday night, that's an inside joke with my wife but I doubt she'll see this) I was around people speaking Spanish and I actually understood about 1/3rd of everything I heard. This surprised me and motivated me to continue my learning.

Health

• To continue losing weight and getting in shape. My goal is to reach 165 pounds. I have about 115 pounds to go which is an aggressive goal. It's time for me to go through a total body reformation for my health and appearance.

Recreation

• To enroll in and complete a motorcycle rider's course, to get my endorsement and to purchase a motorcycle for recreational riding.



• To return to Pensacola Beach this year and to go para sailing again. I also want to take the helicopter ride while I am out there which will mark my first time in a helicopter.



• To go for my first sky dive after I lose about 30 pounds. Then to continue jumping until I have accumulated enough jumps and training to go by myself. My goal is to accomplish this before the end of the year.



• To participate regularly in local no limit texas hold'em poker games and at least 3 Louisiana Casino based tournaments.



• To restart my private pilot training lessons and to complete my private pilot license this year.



• To schedule a cruise to be taken in 2007 or 2008. I've been wanting to go on a cruise for a long time but have not had the chance to. I want to be sure to take a Caribbean Cruise with several ports/stops and I want go swimming with dolphins.



• To enroll in and take Cajun Dancing lessons, something I've been wanting to do for some time.



• To begin planning for an international trip for 2008. Some possible choice locations are Costa Rica, Italy, London or any other of a wide variety of places I would like to see. My goal would be to continue this and to take an additional international vacation every other year.

Relationships

• To not react at all to my wife since I keep hurting her every time I react to her rejection of me. I want to achieve peace in our separation and ultimately our divorce so that neither one of us has to endure any more pain than we already have.



• I pray that I would regain my friend. I call this one a prayer because I know there is nothing I can do in my power to make this happen. I have acted in such a deplorable manner that she is justified in never wanting to talk to me again. I pray that God would release her from the bad memories and hurt and pain and that in His timing we would be able to share at least a basic friendship.

I have several other Dreams, Goals and Prayers that I will not publish here at this time. I know these things seem ambitious and probably a lot to accomplish, but for anyone who actually knows me, they know that once I resolve my mind to do something, the chances of me accomplishing it are actually quite high.

When my wife and I were dating, she used to tell me that I took on way too much. In my past, I've accomplished and done so much that when I tell the stories, many people didn't believe I could possibly be telling the truth, especially when I was younger (now that I'm older its not so hard to imagine that I could have had all of those experiences in life).

I'm expecting truly BIG things for 2007 and am glad that I've already started down the path a few weeks ago which proves to me that this is not a fleeting list of resolutions that will be forgotten before the end of the week.

David and Goliath: Revelation

Today's church sermon was very powerful. Pastor Jay preached on expecting BIG things for 2007. And that was right up my alley since I'm working on following my dreams once again and am truly expecting BIG things in the upcoming weeks, months and years.

He preached from Samuel and talked about David and Goliath. Near the end of the service, he talked about us facing our own Goliaths. I went to church today to be freed from a sinful grip that remains in my life and I walk out certain that I'm freed from it.

Although my past week or so has been immensely better, the month prior was probably some of the worst times I've experienced in my life. The message I got this morning BEFORE I went to church was "Be still and know that I am God." See, this is particularly relevant because until a week or two ago, I've been trying to do anything I can to get changes in my personal circumstances and they've all backfired on me. I've hurt the very people I'm trying to reach and show love to and I've done it time and time again.

At church however, as Pastor Jay was speaking about facing our Goliaths, I was lumping some of my personal problems such as my divorce in that group. But then God convicted me and showed me something I really didn't want to see. But in hindsight, I'm glad he did.

What God showed me was that I had become a Goliath to others. This stopped me dead in my tracks. And the more I began to think about it, the more I realized how true it was. If I don't turn to him (back to "be still and know that I am God" and put my situation in his hands and stop trying to change it myself), I will be knocked down and defeated.

So for me, that also means that I am my own Goliath. That means that I must focus on myself and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. I was already realizing this slowly over the past month through my counseling and coaching and books I've been reading, but today really was a wake up call that drove that home.

I really do believe that 2007 is the year of BIG things. I've had a lot of great things happening in the past week or so and there's no reason to believe that things will not continue to improve. And I am believing for miracles in many different ways.

But I have to stop trying to change others and I have to stop looking to God to change others. The changes need to happen in me. And as only the Lord knows, I need a lot of changing. I've made so many positive changes in me in the past weeks and many people around me are starting to see it and even comment on it. But even as much as I've improved, there is still so much left in me that needs further refining and improvement.

I know that the remaining changes that are needed in me will happen in the upcoming days and weeks and months and that a new improved me will emerge. I couldn't be more encouraged that the changes which have already occurred in me have been so evident to those closest to me that they are seeing them and acknowledging them without me needing to tell them about the changes or point them out. But I also know that despite how far I have come, I still have plenty of faults and a long ways to go.

I just wish that I had made these realizations much earlier. I did a lot of things that I truly regret. The more I wanted to show people that I cared and loved them, the more I lashed out and hurt them and convinced them of the opposite. My soul grieves the pain that I've caused to some that I care the most about. I wish I had a way to express in actions how truly sorry and regretful I am because I know how little the words themselves will mean. But since I don't know how to show that, I'll have to merely "be still" and I will have to know that God IS.