Today’s guest post is by Connie from The Daisy Head
New Year, New Dream
It’s the time of year when it seems that everyone is making New Year resolutions. Everyone, that is, except my family. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think resolutions are evil. Making New Year resolutions has never appealed to me. I just don’t understand it, and so my children have never really caught the enthusiasm for resolutions either.
That said, I love the advent of a new year. I love the feeling of newness. The new calendar really doesn’t change anything. It’s just the next day—the same as any other—but it gives us a sense of a fresh start. When a thing is new, it can become anything.
The New Year gives me a sense that my days are new. They are renewed. Anything can happen. It gives us a sense that God will do something new in our lives.
A Time to Reflect
The excitement of a new beginning naturally causes us to think back on the year just finished. We ponder the things we had planned and wished for. We consider whether we have lived up to the dream we had this time last year.
Bringing children into this time of reflection can be an insightful time of reevaluation of your homeschool. Sometimes we are afraid to hear what our children have to say about our year. We are afraid they will give us a bad “teacher evaluation.” However, we may also hear some positive feedback from our students that we would never have heard without a time of reflection with them.
A Time to Set New Goals
Whether your time of reflection has been positive or negative, we have a normal inclination to begin to set new goals. There will always be something that we plan to do better in the new year, or an area that we struggled in last year that we purpose to achieve this year. These become some of our new goals for the coming year.
Writing down new goals can be a very powerful act. The act of writing them down somehow makes the goal real. It can no longer simply be forgotten. This gives us the courage to step out and bring our goals to fruition. The times when I have encouraged my children to write down their goals, I have seen it empower and fuel them.
A Time to Dream
A new year gives the impetus to dream. It’s a time when we remember that God wants to do big things in our lives. Why not dream big? Why not spend some time at His feet asking Him to give us a big dream for this new year?
Taking time to dream and encouraging our children to do the same can light a spark in them. It can awake a passion that God has put within them.
Take time to dream. Write them down. Watch what God does.
That’s my favorite part of the New Year.
Connie is the wife of a bi-vocational, associate pastor and momma to five children. She has been home educating for 14 years and is still trying to figure out how to keep up with highschoolers and preschoolers at the same time. She writes about all things homeschooling momma at the daisyhead. In her spare time, she runs a knitwear design business and blogs about her creations at DaisyHead Creations. You can also connect with her on Facebookand Twitter.
You are very correct about New Year’s resolutions. I usually don’t make any, but made two this year. I was quickly reminded why I don’t usually make resolutions and why those two aspects of my life were the way they were. Reflecting is much more productive. Much, much more productive.
I know exactly what you’re talking about, Susan! I hope your reflection produces much fruit for you!