When you (or, at least I) take a good hard look at yourself and your “spiritual life” (for lack of a better term) you will inevitably find somewhere you fall short.

The catch-22 of course is that if you don’t (have this disappointing epiphany), there’s another type of trouble brewing, and I hope you don’t find out too painfully.

I won’t bother making a list of my shortcomings here (NOYB, and having more people know them won’t help me anyway), but I do want to set up an “Ebenezer” for what I am beginning as a result.

Jay and I have started the Navigator’s Topical Memory System. It’s given me more focus for what I teach the girls, and it gives Jay and me some structure (a plan) for our own memorizing.

It was a “random” find during an alone outing at the Christian book store. Once I saw it (a little package with the plan and a fat book of perforated cards) the appropriateness of the project really grew on me.

Jay and I have been talking about our respective shortcomings and what we should do about them (only our own– we’re not picking at each other). We knew what we aught to do, of course; the trouble, as it always is, was doing it.

Or, rather, doing it ALL. It’s very easy to say: I need to pray more, read the bible more, wait quietly (HA!) on God more, etc. The difficulty is the same as that of trying to start every self-improvement project on January first:

This year I will eat five fruits and veggies daily, make one new dish a week, exercise aerobically for 45-min at least 3 days a week, pick up and put away everything I’m using before I move on to the next project, wash the evening’s dishes before sitting down to relax after dinner, read to the children at least an hour a day, implement Flylady/SHE/organizing strategy of choice. Oh, and brush the dog/cat/squirrel at least once a week to cut back on the amount of hair culled in my daily vacuuming sessions.

Believe me, if I could do all that, I would be sooo happy…

But I can’t, so I work on having dinner ready when Jay get’s home, and making my house a no-yell zone.

Those two things go a long way toward making home a peaceful place.

And starting with scripture memory is a natural and appropriate step toward more consistent and scriptural living. One problem with growing up knowing “everything” you’re supposed to be doing, but not necessarily how to do it all, is that you know how far you have to go, rather than celebrating how far you’ve come.

I have cleared my kitchen counter for nearly a week now. I feel so together.

I have reminded myself that the old has gone the new has come, more times now than I remember. It is an encouraging thought promise.