I finished my five-year diary last year. Keeping that diary let me look back at events, spot trends, recall moments, and notice patterns in my life.

The diary reveals the timeline of the two books I’ve published, a history of my travels, sweet times spent with friends, and also the mundane. Recording my weight and daily (or not) exercise routine helped me stay on track. It has been interesting to note weather patterns; it’s not so unusual that it snows at Easter in the Sierra.

When it came time to buy a new Five-Year Diary, I decided to shake it up a bit. No “more of the same” recording what I do; instead I chose the Q&A a Day 5 Year Journal. For the next five years, I will record what I think instead of what I do. Two sentences a day to respond to  provocative questions like:

• “What is your mission?”
• “How do you describe home?”,
• “What new activity have you tried?”

Crystallizing thought is, of course, good practice for a writer. More than that, it adjusts my focus to “what has changed?”

Seasons of Life

Every season of life brings new realities that require changes in perspective and priorities. Life can get uncomfortable if we don’t adjust to our new normal and make choices based on what we see in our present and future rather than what we experienced in the past.

Case in point: We bought our house at a time when we envisioned housing older parents, hosting family holidays, entertaining crowds, and putting up visitors. We did all that. Now, home is my writing studio in my mountain house or desert retreat, or the places where my family gathers, or the gatherings where my communities work, worship, and play. Respite and solitude, cultural activities that inspire, and intimate dinners with friends that refresh my soul; these are the activities that support my priorities.

Choices

These days, I attend writing conferences instead of town meetings. I drop a news magazine subscription that reinforces a familiar point of view and choose instead to support an Indie publisher with a subscription to a poetry journal. (Rattle, that’s appropriate!) I look at pretty table cloths and don’t buy them. Town meetings, table cloths, news talk, all have had their day in my life.

Do things pile up in the cupboards of your house or the closets of your mind that are lovely but no longer useful? Have you lost your zest for an activity that used to fulfill you? Would your feel lighter if you swept it away to to make room for what you really love?

Try this: Go on a sweeping spree. Make room for something new. Prayerfully indulge the passion you feel right now. It’s not a selfish thing to do. God can use your renewed joy in ways that will delight.