Where Are You Most Happy?

I always look forward to and enjoy time at my parents' home, the house that I halfway grew up in. I say halfway because we moved there in my teens, so the other half was at our other house. :-) I've realized lately, though, that when I am there I look forward to going back to my own home. When I arrive there, however, I quickly begin to miss my brothers and begin looking forward to the next trip a few miles out west.

The same is true when I'm in Arkansas. I'm always looking forward to the next visit to Kentucky, my husband's hometown, but a couple days after being there, I'm ready to go back to Arkansas. This never fails to be true with any mission trip or vacation as well. For example, I'm hoping so much for a beach trip this year, but I know from past experience that almost as soon as I get there, I'll be getting ready to be back in my own bed, kitchen, etc.

All of that got me to thinking where it is that I am really most happy. Sure, there are moments in life that make me truly happy, like when I'm in a crowd of people singing my favorite song with a beautiful piano accompanying us in the background. I wouldn't want even those moments to last forever, though, as eventually I'd want to move on to something else that makes me happy, like watching a good movie with my husband and then sleeping in the next morning with the windows open and birds chirping. All of these things and places make me happy, but only temporarily. None of them would make me happy permanently. I can't even choose one place or thing or combination of the two that makes me 'most' happy. They all have their drawbacks that decrease their 'happy-ability' (side note: making up words makes me happy, too).

I had a conversation with a friend this week about longing for heaven. We both agreed that we don't do a very good job of that. There's too many things we want to do in life, like getting married and having kids and everything else that goes along with that 'happily ever after' life. We talked for a long time about why we think those things will make us happier than the return of Christ would make us. What are we looking to as our all-consuming passion and source of joy?

I'm pretty sure that heaven will be the place that truly makes me the most happy. In fact, it will be more than happiness. It will be joy. True joy. I'm 100 percent positive that once I get there, I won't be ready to return. That is home...real home. Do I really long for that? Do I look forward to my eternal residency there? Am I eagerly awaiting the return of Christ? If so, that changes everything about the way that I live here.

'Revelations'

I am already loving this "backwards through the Bible" thing. I finished reading Revelation today, and tomorrow I'll finish 2 & 3 John. Three books down in five days? That's so much more motivating than spending weeks in The Pentateuch. :-)

Really, though, I've been surprised at how it changes my reading. Day 1 was glorious as I read the end when God's ultimate glory is accomplished and sin is finally put to death. It felt like I was reading the end to the most amazing movie I've ever seen...well, times a gazillion. It was incredible. But then suddenly, in Days 2 and 3, sin was back again, and man was it ever being punished severely. It was pretty painful to read its final blows upon mankind. Seriously awful. Every time I got caught up in the dreadfulness of it all, though, I remembered. I already know the end! This doesn't last! Sin IS defeated!

Day 4 (the first 5 chapters) is full of beautiful praise and declaration of God as the only One worthy. It's also full of warnings to the churches because of the 'drama' that's about to happen between God and sin. It's warning them to be steadfast, to be more than lukewarm, to be faithful. Those words from the Lord to those churches were so much more meaningful to me after having just read WHY God is warning them. He knows what's about to happen and how they will be tested through great persecution. He's preparing them in a way only His great love can do. I never would have picked up on that while reading forwards.

Oh, and one other bonus I realized after starting this endeavor. My dear husband is reading forwards as I am reading backwards. That means that there will be one incredible day when we're reading the same thing. I told him we need to plan to do something really big that day...because for once, we'll be on exactly the same page. :-)

New Projects for a New Year

I'm not a new years resolution person at all. I'm not a fan of making plans in December to change in January if the change should've been made in November. I do, though, like symmetry and organization and clean slates of a sort. So, I've decided to start a couple of projects that just happened to work best if started on January 1st.

The first is the most important. It's the Bible reading plan. I did really well last year, but I still didn't finish the whole Bible in a year. That's not a big deal to me. It's more important that I'm consistently reading it. It does help me, though, to have a plan to stick to for accountability purposes. I decided to do something a bit different this time around. I'm starting at the end and reading backwards. Day 1 will be Revelation 19-22, Day 2 will be 12-18, and so on. I have a few reasons for doing that, but one big one is something I heard from a friend several years ago. He told me how neat it was to read the fulfillment of prophecy before he got to the actual prophecy, as that made God's faithfulness stand out to him. I'm looking forward to that. I'm also eager to read the end and everything that leads up to it, before finally getting back to "in the beginning" at the end of the year. There's something about seeing the simple beginning when there was nothing after reading for a year about everything that came of that nothing. I had thoughts of using a Bible reading app (YouVersion has a really great one), but there's something weird to me about reading from a phone. I like my pink Bible with a few years of notes, and I enjoy adding to those. I'm opting for a different type of accountability. I have a notebook dedicated to this year of readings, and each page is going to hold a prayer or my own notes on the passage that day. I've gone through and written the readings in each page, so if I don't follow through, I'll waste one of my favorite journals. (That's me knowing myself and what motivates or pressures me :-)!) I have high hopes of the treasure this notebook should be to me someday.

Next project is a pinterest project. I have a notecard for each day of the year. At the end of the day, I will write down something I did that day that wasn't something I would do any other day. For example, today I wrote that we started a San Diego puzzle while watching a few episodes of Seinfeld. I'll do that every day, and then next year, I'll do the same thing on the same cards. In a few years, I can look back and see what I did on every January 12 for the past 10 years. I imagine that could get really fun when we have kids and I can document all of their firsts and such. Ryan hasn't quite bought in yet...he doesn't think our life is all that special! I think he will appreciate it eventually, though. I'm willing to try. :-)

As far as goals, I am planning to read more for fun this year. I have several books I've been wanting to read, and now that all of my cross stitch projects are done, I have some fun time back. My health goals are different than any year before. Since my body has rejected almost all food since July, weight loss has been an unexpected gift of 2011. Instead of that goal again this year, I'm hoping to eat a cheeseburger sometime in 2012. A real one...or at least one that's not been turned into a milk shake so that I can drink it. So gross. Along with that, I want to be a leader in joy this year. I've been a Debbie downer a lot in 2011, and the Lord has been working in my heart on that for a few weeks now.

I expect this year to bring a lot of changes. I would love to see my full health again. I'd love to be able to get pregnant sometime in the next 12 months. I long to have some clarity in where God has Ryan and I placed ministry-wise in the future. I'd like to make some close friends to enjoy life with. I need to grow in some relationships with those I am already close with... There are many things I'd like to see changed in 2012. But, there's only one thing that is sure not to change, and that's something that gives me peace in all of the other areas. My God isn't going to change. He is Who He is now and forever, and I don't want Him any other way.