|

As if I wasn’t challenged enough…

Even though things like untangling my bracelets is kind of an everyday challenge for me, I have somehow managed to commit myself to several more group type challenges for the holiday season.

The first one was self-imposed and gleaned from attending the Declare Conference.

I was introduced to the idea of a 30 Day Writing Challenge and have set a goal to write 1,000 words every day for the month of November.

The plan is to end up with 30,000 words of subject matter and then I can take a look at it and see if it is worth putting together into some sort of book form or maybe just something I needed to get out of my system.

A thousand words may seem like a lot, but ask Russ…no problemo for me.

Not only can I say that many on a walk around the block with him, I actually write 500-700 a day for this so it is doable….

if it wasn’t for the fact that ever since I stated that I would be setting November aside to do this…

every spare second has been sucked out of the universe.

Then there was the next challenge that came down the pike.

A fitness and health challenge for the holidays offered by Melanie Brown of  Motivated by More. See what she is up to here …. http://motivatedbymore.net

Melanie leads the twice weekly exercise class I attend and is an encourager extraordinaire.

So when she offered a Holiday Challenge group, I signed up and we are on Week 2 of this adventure.

This little junket into healthy eating and exercise accompanied by daily devotions had barely started when I received the 7 days of Black and White picture challenge I spoke of on Friday.

And that was a blast….but still has me scrolling through Facebook to make sure I have caught everyone else’s clever and oh so artsy pics.

And then Sunday morning, I received a new challenge in church.

Pastor Brian shared a truly helpful and applicable sermon on the Lord’s Prayer and how he uses it in his devotion time.

Check out Part 2 of the Be Still series at  http://firstdecatur.org/sermons

The challenge is to use the model of the Lord’s Prayer every day through the end of the year.

Brian broke down the sections of the Lord’s Prayer and showed us how we can use it to shape our prayers to God based on Jesus answer to the disciples request for Him to teach them how to pray the way He did.

This sermon gives fresh insight into using this prayer and ends with offering an opportunity to commit to the discipline of prayer at a set time and place each day as 2017 winds to a close.

Something I have been learning through all of these different challenges is the great addition of accountability.

For the writing challenge, I have a couple of other writers I am checking in with who also committed to some kind of regular writing throughout these 30 days.

With a little text message here and there, we have been checking in on each other. Some days we share our frustration that we haven’t written, or just a shout out to do whatever we can.

The same is true for the Holiday Challenge.

Melanie sends out emails every day, menu plans once a week and has connected us all on an app that I just finally figured out I should be connecting more regularly.

On the app, there is a thread of conversations about wins when temptation was overcome or fessing up when we gave in. Members are sharing recipes and such.

I have found these comments to be so inspiring to me to keep me on the right path with making healthier choices for food intake and exercise.

And now with the Lord’s Prayer challenge…this one…I want to hold myself accountable to you.

I hope you will join me and if I glean anything sharable along the way of this challenge, I do commit to pass it along to you. I may even start a category for this one…we shall see…but…

The main thing is, if you have set goals for yourself, it’s not cheating to gather a few like-minded support people around you and devise a way to encourage each other even as you hold each other accountable.

Be blessed today in whatever you set your heart and mind to do <3

 

Share and Save: