Dear Friends,

It has been far too long since I last wrote of "lessons learned." I am still learning, but the process of life has been very full and, it seems, has squeezed out the time for contemplating and writing.

However, one of the words God has given to me recently, is that I am to be "intentional." That is the opposite of hap-hazard or accidental. It seems that far too often my life goes by and unplanned things happen. The urgent begins to dominate, and the ordinary gets relegated to "later." When "later" comes, I most often don't have energy to deal with it. And when the events of life are not intentional, I wonder where my time has gone, or I spend far too much time and energy cleaning up the messes that have been created as a result of lack of planning or organizing.

Life is not meant to control or overwhelm us. When that happens, it is a sure sign to me that I am not seeking first the Kingdom of God, and that too much of my life is not under His control and blessings. So, with that as background, I am working at being "intentional" about more things in life.

1. My first priority is to daily seek God dilligently. The exciting results of seeking Him are that we find Him, as He has promised. And then, as if finding Him were not enough, He says He rewards those who dilligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). Wow. Why would we not seek Him with those two promised results?

2. My second priority in to invest quality time into the lives of my family: of course, my precious husband (we celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary next weekend), my children, and my 5 grandchildren. That has eternal impact and thus, eternal value.

3. God has told me to be "intentional" in relationships. He has given me precious friends who add truth, accountability, joy, encouragement to my life. He has also given me relationships with people who challenge my Godliness, sand off the rough edges, and sometimes simply bring me to my knees. Those all have purpose and I am grateful for each one of them. God has told me to invest time and energy in each relationship that He brings into my life.

4. I am going to try to be intentional about this blog. It will change over the next few months. Rather than writing long epistles, which can be overwhelming and boring...I plan to write shorter blogs that get more quickly to the point! And I plan to write more regularly. There...I said it. It is in print! That would be called COMMITMENT.

The subjects will continue to come from what God is teaching me through the processes of my life...because, as my husband often says, "You can't teach what you don't know and you can't lead where you don't go!" So, I share from my life and all that God is teaching me.

Today, I must go be intentional about preparing hundreds of apricots that are ripe and falling off of our tree. How like God...when He gives us fruit, there is a responsibility that goes with it. So, I am off to be responsible with the gift of apricots!