Valentine’s week isn’t exactly the new year, but it’s still close enough to take a quick look back at the past year and re-evaluate how best to move forward.  Each new year, our pastor encourages us to do a PLD (Personal Life Development) evaluation.  It’s one of those things I never exactly look forward to doing (hence my procrastination to mid-February!) but am always blessed when I finally take the time to do it.   The PLD is simply using a short list of thought-provoking questions to help you think through the last year and get a positive and deliberate plan for where you are headed in the future.
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PLD (Personal Life Development) Questions

What some things I’ve learned about God this past year?

What are evidence of my growth this past year?

What are some things I’ve learned about myself this year or areas where I need to develop and grow?

What is my specific growth plan for this coming year?

I like to add my own section of questions relating to goals of Parenting with Scripture:

What worked and didn’t work last year with the spiritual training of my children?

What is our spiritual growth plan for our children this year in general and  also related to individual and/or family devotional times?
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The effect this has on our family is priceless.  Though I have a general idea of where we’ve been and are headed, there’s nothing like getting it out on paper (or computer file!) to solidify the plan.  Writing it out causes me to be deliberate rather than haphazard.  Keeping a computer file of each year’s PLD allows me to go back and look at past years and see how God has worked in my life and family.   I also mark my calendar for early summer each year to take a look back at the current year’s PLD and make sure we’re still on track.  I don’t want these important aspects of my life and my parenting to be like those new year’s resolutions that quickly fizzle. 

So even though it’s mid-February, I encourage you to be deliberate!  Better late than never!

Love this idea from my ever creative friend, Elizabeth!

“I purchased the little tin mailboxes years ago in the dollar bin at Target.  The kids decorated their own box with pictures, stickers, and gems.  All family members are encouraged to leave each other little love notes and treats too. We put the little flags up when we have left something for someone to find.  My oldest has already been having LOTS of fun with this.  He even left me cash the other morning!   I try to have lots of little papers/notes they can use to create “mail.”     A bonus is that this helps with writing skills!  But more importantly, it teaches about thoughtfulness and what it means to do small things to make someone else smile.  Closer to Valentine’s Day, I plan to write “love notes” from God to them along with some sweet treats.  I will pick verses about love and substitute their names in them.”

Anyone have Christmas cards still floating around the house?  We’ve enjoyed using ours during our family prayer times in the evenings this month.  If your kids are like mine, they tend to get in a rut and pray for the same people and things.  This idea has brought a much needed freshness as we each draw from the pile of cards each night and pray for the people represented by the cards.

Happy New Year! 
Each new year my husband and I take time to evaluate the spiritual goals of our family and what we want to try to accomplish as we head forth into the coming twelve months.  This year was easy!  Our church has embarked on a plan to read through the New Testament in a year.  Our Children’s Director has encouraged us to either read aloud or help our children keep up with the reading so that everyone, young and old, will be engaged in this worthwhile process.  Though we have gone through just about every “children’s Bible story book” out there with our kids and have obviously read select verses or passages from the Bible, we’ve never taken upon such a challenge as to read straight through.  I’ve always been wistful of the days gone by when Papa would gather the children around the hearth and read God’s Word, straight from the Good Book.  So why has it never occurred to me that we could still do that?  Who knows?!  I guess it’s just that sometimes the most obvious things don’t occur to us until they hit us in the face!  Such was this year with the reading plan!  As our children’s director said, speaking of her first grade son, “How cool will it be that he, at eight years old, will be able to say that he’s heard the whole New Testament by the end of the year!”  Her intention was not that this would be a point of bragging.  Rather, that the Bible will have become accessible to him in a way that is not as often the case for our youngsters these days.  I remember as a college student, how daunting it seemed when I started reading the Bible through for the first time.  My hope for our children is that whenever they decide to take that challenge upon themselves, they will be more confident because of this year’s experience.  For now, we’re excited to see what fruitfulness God’s brings through the reading and hearing of His word through our NT2012 plan!

If you would like jump on in personally or with your family, check out http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/project-345.  This details the NT read through we are doing, but the site offers many other reading plans and multiple ways to customize them. 

Happy Reading!