A Matter of Purpose...

Chowder and I went to a Financial Seminar to learn some of the things that good grown-ups should know. And one of the keys to getting your finances in order, is to get them inline with your Life Purpose. (capital L capital P).

Now, every book I seem to be reading right now, keeps harping on this same theme. this Life Purpose theme. I feel like I have a vague sense of life purpose (lowercase l lowercase p). A kind of gossamer hold on what type of person I want to become. I see my future, fantasy me way out there. but she tends to taunt me and haunt me with how little like her I actually am. I begin to wonder if it's just not possible for me to be that Dream Cakes. Perhaps, I'm trying to go too much against the grain of who God made me. convenient, eh? but is it just convenient? or is there some shred (or more) of truth to it? can we become a different sort of person just by sheer determination and brute force?

Let's have a look.

I would love to express my self creatively through visual arts. of some kind. I feel the need to create beauty. I think their is a spiritual calling to this type of creating. I have no discernable skills. I have never learned how to "do" any form of art. I am not worried about being a "hack." I truly couldn't care less. but I do want to be able to make tangible, physical in form, what my mind already sees.

I would love to be an orderly keeper of my home. I feel a strong spiritual calling to make my home a place of welcome and refuge to not only my family but whoever finds themselves on my doorstep. I want to live and breathe hospitality. I want to fill my family with healthy foods. I want my home to be a place of rejuvenation for Chowder whose ADD brings him nearly to a standstill when he encounters too much chaos. too much inconsistency. I want my home to be the place where my children's friends want to be and therefore where my own teenage children will want to be. safe.

I would love to be lighthearted.

I would love to have a beautiful garden where my children can hide and play and imagine. A garden with nooks and fairies and teddy bear picnics. A garden with a little pond and stepping stones and a bullfrog or two. A garden that is an extension of the home. A place of refuge and welcome. where we can eat our summer BBQ. where we can lay on the grass and watch the clouds.

I would love to spend my money intentionally. Knowing where it is going and wasting none of it. Spending it to a purpose of practicality, spirituality, and plain old good fun. I want to stop living in denial and just crossing our fingers that each month will come out alright.

Yes, I think all of these things could happen with determination. If I made the choices to make them happen. but all of those things...well, really, they are just behaviors. They don't describe the person I want to be. They aren't a Life Purpose. They might be how I live out or express my Life Purpose, but they aren't the Life Purpose, itself.

Let's try again.

I want to be a Woman of Joy

I want to be a Woman of Faith

I want to be a Woman of Hope

better. that one I definitely cannot do on my own. even with brute force. that one will take some divine intervention.