Living an Intentional Life

In the wake of recent news stories and several ongoing conversations between me and Cornbread and a conversation with my parents this weekend, I feel a need to put some thoughts down in writing. I am free-writing this so it may not be incredibly coherent or organized. Please look past that. If you would like to comment and have a "discussion" please feel free to do so, however, I ask that you be respectful of others and their opinions.

Something I have felt for quite some time is that I need to be intentional about how I live. We live in a world where we just do the easy things... eat like crap because it is more convenient to do so than to try to plan a properly nutritious diet, run through the drive through on the way home because we don't feel like making dinner, letting our kids watch, read, and listen to whatever they want with the expectation that they will be able to discern what is appropriate and what isn't, giving in to tantrums just to quiet them down, adults excusing their choices of music, television and movies because they are adults and they can do what they want, allowing our teenage children to dress in revealing clothes, moms dressing in revealing clothes because they are trendy, etc. etc.. All of these things and more are leading to a huge breakdown in society - a society that is becoming more and more desensitized to what is inappropriate for ourselves and for our children.

I will speak only for myself and not make decisions for others on this... I feel it is incredibly important for my family to reverse this trend. It is going to be hard work. It is going to be a struggle. Life would be more convenient and perhaps easier if we went along the road of doing what feels good and doing the things that are less work. But would our lives be happier? Significant? Fullfilling? Honoring to God? I think the answer is no.

Cornbread and I had a conversation on the way home from Michigan yesterday about wanting to keep our girls as pure as possible for as long as possible. We're not prudes - believe me, we've each done a lot of stuff in our past that we would not be proud to share with other people - we're not trying to turn our girls into Laura Ingalls (is that her name - that girl from little house). We're trying to figure out ways that we can insulate our children from the sex-sells society. The world where it is okay to reveal too much skin as a 16 year old girl, it is okay to look at the too much skin as a 13 year old boy; a world where 5th grade children are having sex in their classroom in front of their classmates, a world where sexual activity at a young age is the norm and almost expected. How do we insulate OUR children? How do we teach them and encourage them to make good choices and not go with the flow? How do we lead our children to a honorable, respectable lifestyle?

If you want to be respected, you have to be respectable.

This is my new key phrase in life. And one that is challenging me to think about what I am doing, what I am watching and what I am listening to. If I want my children to respect me, I need to be respectable. I need to be intentional in my life about how I am displaying myself to them and what I am teaching them through my actions. No longer is it okay for me to watch whatever I want to watch after they go to bed, for me to read magazines that further a culture that I don't want to influence my kids just because somehow the magazine has been sent to me for free, for me to view myself as a discerning individual. Its time to think about what I'm doing and stop excusing my choices because they are enjoyable and I don't want to give them up. We discussed the tv shows we watch, the movies we watch, our attitudes toward nutrition, diet, exercise, smoking, drinking - everything. If I think, for a minute, that my actions and my attitudes are not being noticed by my 5 year old because "she's too young" to know the difference, I'm simply being dumb. She may not completely grasp everything, but it will stick with her.

Being intentional does not mean living life as I want but hiding it from my kids' eyes. Its not soley about how my actions influence my children, but it is about how my actions affect my life and how I am honoring God, my children, my husband and myself. An intentional life is not going to be easy. I'm going to have to actually think about what I am doing rather than just doing it. I like my Body For Life diet for that reason (there are others) - I no longer have the option of going to find something to eat and just grabbing whatever is available to eat because it looks good or it is easy, I have to plan my meals and snacks long before I eat them. I have to be intentional about what I'm eating throughout the day. Its not easy. But it is important.

I want to live a life of significance and that may mean doing difficult things because they are right. Do I want to give up some of my tv shows? Not at all. I'm going to miss them. But it is important to do so. It is important for me to be careful about what I'm watching so that I am not influenced negatively, am not desensitized to inappropriate actions and language on tv and so that when I tell my kids that they are not allowed to watch something that is inappropriate they can't turn to me and tell me that I watch it so why can't they.

If you want to be respected, you need to be respectable... a challenge. A difficult one, but an important one.

QOTD: What do you think? Are there areas in your life that you feel deep down that you need to change but you don't want to because you enjoy it too much? Any other thoughts?