Slow and Steady

"Slow and steady wins the race" a wise older woman taught me this year. I tell myself this every week: "Slow and steady, you don't have to do everything at the same time!" When I met the love of my life six years ago I wanted to get married, have babies and buy a house right away. We ended up planning our wedding at the same time as we were in the process of buying a new house. Let's just say the process was quite stressful. It's natural to want it all and want it now, but it's not necessarily the best approach to life. We are only human and nobody can do too many different things at the same time, not without getting a burn out. If we keep doing too many things at the same time it's not possible to keep a high quality in every area of life, something will suffer and fail, whether it's your marriage, your health, your career or something else.

I want to strive for excellence in everything I do in life but then I can't do too many things at the same time. I wonder if one of the reasons so many people are unhappy and unhealthy in today's society is because we live such fast lives? We want to fulfill all our dreams by age 40 at the latest and we don't want to wait on anything. My mother can tell you that I'm not the most patient person in the world. Patience is something I really need to practice. Three years ago I was still a fairly new Christian and I was excited to discover what the purpose is for my life. Today I'm starting to have a pretty clear picture of my purpose in life and I know what God is calling me to do with my life. Now when I know what I'm called to do I want to do it all at the same time of course. I have to force myself to wait and not pursue every dream at the same time. If I get around 70-100 years on this planet it's evident that I don't need to fulfill all my dreams and my life's purpose during my thirties. I have all the time I need.

I like to make a one-year-plan in my notebook in January every year and beside it I have a list of all the big goals I have for a whole lifetime. I pick 1-2 things to focus on each year and the rest will have to wait until next year, or until next decade. There's no need to overbook my schedule one year when I have so many years ahead. I want to focus on quality in whatever I do each year. I don't want to be so busy that I don't have time to have a Date Night with my husband, to spend a lot of time with the family and my friends. I don't want to be so busy that I have to skip taking care of my physical or emotional health."Less is more"and "Slow and steady"are mantras I try to live by. I also find that I enjoy life so much more when I move through life at a slower pace. I have time to stop and reflect on things and feel grateful for everything that God has blessed me with so far in life. Life is so beautiful, I don't want to miss it by being too busy or because I move too fast through life.

Showing Kindness

I really value learning about life from older women who have dealt with the same things that I'm facing in my life today. Older women who can offer their wisdom and encouragement. Mary Kassian is a Canadian author, speaker, blogger and professor. Mary is also a wife, mom, granny, cyclist and dog lover. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is an American author, speaker and radio host. Together Nancy and Mary have written a book called True Woman 201 and in this video they talk about why it makes a huge difference in the world when a woman chooses to show kindness to others.

Most people would agree that choosing to show kindness to others is a nice thing to do, but for a Christian it's a godly thing to do. God showed kindness to us when he saved us so how can we not show kindness to others as a response to that? When we have experienced God's love and kindness in our own lives being kind to others becomes the natural response.

We all know that kindness can make a huge difference in our interactions with others but it's still difficult to be kind to others. Sometimes it's easier to be kind to strangers than it is to be kind to our own husbands and children. We easily become snappy and mean when we are too busy, stressed or tired. We know that God values a kind heart very highly and therefore it's important for each one of us to be willing to grow in the area of kindness.

We don't have to beat ourselves up when we end up being unkind to others, every day is a new chance to practice choosing kindness. We are all on a kindness journey and the more we practice patience, self-control and kindness the better we will get at it.

Monday Night is Date Night

My husband and I had our weekly Date Night on Monday evening. We had a very enjoyable dinner at Moxie's. I had their Mango Chicken and it was amazing! Taking time for Date Nights is quite easy for us during this stage in life since we don't have any kids yet. We never imagined that we would be celebrating four years of marriage and still not have any children, but life doesn't always go the way we expected. I used to be very frustrated when things didn't go according to my perfect five year plan but I'm becoming better and better at trusting life and letting go of trying to control everything.

There's and upside and downside to every stage in life and every challenge in life can teach us something, although personal growth can often be both annoying and painful. The great benefit of this stage in life is that my husband and I have a lot of time for each other and can have a Date Night on a Monday which would probably not happen if we had little kids at home. On the other hand, the constant struggle is staying positive while we wait for that stork (who is supposed to bring our baby) to find our address.

Patience, faith and hope goes a long way. I believe that 2016 is the year when things will start to turn around for us, and who knows, a year from now we might be at home with our child/children helping them with their homework.