The Resolution Revolution, Part 3

(NOTE: THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF YESTERDAY’S POST. TO START AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ESSAY, SCROLL DOWN TO PART 1 AND MOVE UP FROM THERE.)

At that moment, I had to admit the obvious truth, that if I hadn’t been able to change thus far, it wasn’t likely that I ever would in the future either. For now and forever, unless I was handed some sort of miracle, I was and always would be the same overweight, perpetually late, disorganized, messy, unhealthy, spiritually immature person I always had been.

No wonder I was depressed!

As you can imagine, this was one of the lowest points of my life, not to mention one of the most confusing. I kept asking myself what other choice I had but to keep picking myself up and dusting myself off and trying yet again to do what I wanted to do but seemed incapable of doing.

If this sounds foreign to you, then perhaps you’ve never had these kind of struggles, ones that force you to wage battle against your own true nature, behaviors, and mindsets. But if you are a person who is housekeeping impaired, then more than likely you know exactly what I’m talking about—and not just in the area of home care but in other areas as well.

In my struggle, my mind went to the Apostle Paul, who said: “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do,” and also “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

That was me in a nutshell! I wanted desperately to do better but couldn’t seem to change. Reaching for my Bible, I decided to explore further what Paul had to say on the subject, hoping to find a new perspective on my issues.

The verses I had been thinking of were in the book of Romans. (Note: Though I usually prefer the ESV or NIV versions of the Bible, I’m posting The Message version here, for clarity.) To put them in context, Romans 7:15-25 says:

What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

Great stuff, huh? Sadly, I could see myself in all of it, especially:

I decide one way, but then I act another...

I need something more!

I obviously need help!

I can will it, but I can't do it.

Something…gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable.

I've tried everything and nothing helps.

I'm at the end of my rope.

Despite my hopelessness, as I read these words, I felt like I was on the verge of finding some answers.

BE SURE TO COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT PORTION OF THIS ESSAY.

The Resolution Revolution, Part 2

(NOTE: THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF YESTERDAY’S POST.)

About five years ago while cleaning out a closet, I ran across an old box of papers, one that had somehow gotten shoved aside in our previous move. Included among its receipts and letters and mementoes was a stack of old calendars. Like my mother, I had often recorded my resolutions on their final pages. Delighting in my find, I sat down to take a look at what I had written in years past. Starting with the calendar from my first full year of marriage, 1989, I read the list of resolutions I had made:

1. Keep house clean.
2. Lose weight.
3. Do Bible study daily.
4. Stop being late to appointments, etc.
5. Get organized.
6. Clean out all closets.
7. Exercise daily.
8. Manage time better.

and so on, up to about 20 total, almost all of which were along the same lines of getting the house clean and organized, making healthy choices, managing my time better, and deepening my spiritual walk. I put that calendar away and picked up another one, from several years and two kids later. The resolutions read:

1. Lose 20 pounds.
2. Clean the kitchen every night before going to bed.
3. Get some kind of exercise every day.
4. Clean out drawers & closets.
5. Organize house & schedule.
6. Read my Bible more.

and so on. The lists were very similar, as almost every resolution on both was about getting the house clean and organized, making healthy choices, managing my time better, and deepening my spiritual walk. With an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach, I peeked at a few other calendars, only to find that almost all of the resolutions on all of the lists were exactly the same. Finally, I put down the box, went to my office and dug from the filing cabinet a calendar from a more recent year. I won't bother to list here what I found on its last page, but I'm sure you can imagine: Each resolution had to do with getting the house clean and organized, making healthy choices, managing my time better, and deepening my spiritual walk.

Hoping this had something to do with the demands of being a wife and mother, I returned to the box of old calendars and pulled out a few from those years before I had gotten married. Heart sinking, I could see that though the specifics had changed somewhat, the overriding intentions had always been exactly the same: clean my apartment, lose weight, get in shape, manage my time, get organized, and be a better Christian. Whether age 17 or 22 or 29 or 35 or 42, I always seemed to need to get healthy, get my house clean, learn to manage my time, organize my life, and focus more fully on God.

It's hard to explain the depression that descended upon me in that moment. Faced with the evidence of a lifetime of resolutions that I’d kept making year after year, I could draw only one conclusion: Despite fierce determination and the best of intentions, I had never been able to successfully alter even one of my poorer habits nor had I managed to resolve a single one of the basic issues behind them. Even then, I realized, I was still for the most part ignoring my health and my spiritual growth, my house was a mess, and I was disorganized, unstructured, and undisciplined.

Certainly, I had made great strides in other areas of my life, things that had taken plenty of hard work and dedication to achieve. Despite my personal failures, I had succeeded in maintaining a healthy marriage and raising two great kids, and I had recently embarked on an exciting new career. But with these other basic issues of health and home weighing me down year after year, my life was harder than it needed to be, requiring way more effort on my part than it should have. I mean, it’s hard enough to have a demanding career, but harder still when your office is such a mess it takes hours to locate a single, important file. It’s hard enough to raise good kids, harder still when you can’t even keep up with the laundry or the dishes or the papers they bring home from school. It’s hard enough to have a happy marriage, harder still when your husband has to live with clutter, disorganization, frequent tardiness, and an overweight and exhausted wife. In short, though I had achieved much, I had also failed much. Each and every year, as I documented my resolutions, I had essentially been documenting my greatest failures.

What was wrong with this picture? What was wrong with me?

BE SURE TO COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT PORTION OF THIS ESSAY.

The Resolution Revolution, Part 1

Do you make resolutions every New Year? We always did when I was growing up. My mother had a wonderful way of turning New Years Eve into something very special. She would drape a fancy tablecloth over the coffee table in the living room and top it with champagne glasses, sparkling cider in an ice bucket, and some favorite munchies such as marshmallow treats. In the evening, we would all gather there together. Sitting on the floor around the table and sipping our "champagne", we'd look back at the year that had just passed and make plans for the one that lay ahead. Eventually, we would be ready to make our resolutions, which was the main focus of the celebration. One by one, we would take turns, going around in a circle until each person had had a chance to verbalize every single one of their New Years resolutions.

As we did this, we had just one rule: No one was allowed to make fun of anyone else, for example, by saying, "Well it's about time!" or "Yeah, right, I'll believe that when I see it!" Instead, after each person spelled out some way that they wanted to "do better" this year, in response the others were simply to raise a glass and say, "I'll drink to that!" Each resolution was diligently recorded by my mother on the last page of her new calendar for that upcoming year, preserving a permanent, hand-written record of our best intentions.

When the clock neared midnight, we would flip on the TV to count down and watch the ball drop, then we'd sing together a verse or two of Auld Lang Syne. (What I wouldn't give for a recording of one of those nights! We were a very musical family, and our amazing harmonies were often the highlight of the evening.) I have such fond memories of those celebrations, and I'm grateful to my mother that she took the time to make them happen.

Fast forward all these many decades later and you'll find that I still bring in the New Year in almost exactly the same way with my husband and kids--with one important exception. Nowadays, though our New Years Eve celebrations usually incorporate all of the same elements that my mother's did, from the tablecloth to Auld Lang Syne, I intentionally omit the part of the evening where we make resolutions.

That's because I gave up all New Year's Resolution-making a while back. This year, I encourage you to take a good, hard look at whether you should do the same. If you do, you may just find that by eliminating the "resolution mentality" from your celebration and your life, you'll discover a startling fact, that you'll actually accomplish more, not fewer, of the changes that you want to make.

BE SURE TO COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT PORTION OF THIS ESSAY.

Oops!

Having some technical difficulties with this blog. Please bear with me. If you are subscribed here, you probably noticed that yesterday's post was incomplete. Sorry about that! Looks like I will need to break it into manageable chunks and re-post.

Please check back, I hope to straighten this out soon.

Thanks for your patience.

Happy New Year

(Photo taken by my husband in nearby Valley Forge Park.)

Blessings to you in 2011!