A Roadmap to Abundance?

From part one of this post, found here:
"I want more of that.  A year without perfectionism, without striving.  A year in which I live and move from a state of rest.  In which I more fully grasp my salvation in Christ, my worthiness apart from anything I accomplish or mess up."

Here are the words I settled on to guide my year, which I am posting in March just as a friendly little sucker punch to the recovering Type A Perfectionist in me.

After musing over the previous year, I made a list of possible goal words.  A weird little shiver came over me when I came to abundance.  Christians often talk about “abundant life” in Christ (referring to John 10:10 especially), and though I deeply desire this, I don't feel I've experienced it with any kind of consistency.  I want to (and have already started to) reorient myself around this frame for the learning and living for the year ahead.  Abundant joy.  Abundant peace.  Abundant grace.  Abundant life.

The three words below are a little road map toward my goal (because I seem to always need the "how-to" part spelled out for me).

Release – let go of the old stories of how I ought to be, of how life ought to be.  Let go of old habits of grasping, of anxiety and expectation.  I love this definition from the online Oxford Dictionaries: "allow (something) to return to its resting position by ceasing to put pressure on it."

Rest – true rest that restores, that is an ongoing state of being and not a temporary pause.  Margin in my schedule, calm in my emotions, Trust in my spirit.

Nourish – feed my body, relationships, and soul with good and lovely things as much as I am able and, with compassion, go back to releasing when I am not.


P.S. I wanted to point you toward a blog post that urged observation and awareness instead of rash resolutions at the start of the calendar year.  Alas, I have lost it in the vast wilderness of The Internet.  Instead, I'll just point out that many people who made 2016 resolutions in January have already failed or forgotten them and are being forced to make new ones right about now.  So there.

Other posts in this series:

One Word - 2016 (part one of this post)

A Roadmap to Abundance?

Release

More "one word" posts.