Every January my husband and I write down our goals for the new year.  We suck at keeping new years resolutions, but we’re pretty darn good at achieving our goals…go figure. We started our goal sheet back in 2011 when we became serious about paying off our debt (thank you Dave Ramsey…we’re almost there).

This piece of paper we keep up with is nothing fancy, but it sure is effective. We have several categories including physical goals, spiritual goals, marriage goals, financial goals, house goals, and we even have categories for Laynie’s goals and Gideon’s goals.

Sadly, in 2014, we didn’t set any goals. Gideon stopped eating last January and my goal for the first few months was to simply keep him from starving. Plus if I’m being completely honest, when I sat down last year to evaluate the 2013 goals, I became depressed.

When we set Gideon’s goals for 2013, we had no idea I would soon give birth to a child with a genetic disorder. By the time he was 7 months old, it became apparent that most of Gideon’s goals would not be achieved.

I think it goes without saying that it’s hard to set goals for a child who has a shortened life expectancy. It’s even harder to set goals when you have no clue what your child will ever be able to accomplish, physically or mentally.  In fact, I still don’t know what to expect from Gideon. But Gideon is not the problem here. The problem here is me.

It’s more apparent to me now than ever (especially since I’m crying as I type this), that my biggest problem is that I fear failure. Which is so stupid because looking back at our goal sheet from 2013, we achieved so much that year in every other category. And that was the same year our son was given a death sentence!

So we are setting goals again for 2015. I’ve rejected the lie that somehow I failed my son. Want to hear something funny?? 1 out of 5 goals got met for Gideon in 2013; but in 2014 all those goals from the previous year got met…all except one!!

I’m not sure if you’re a goal setter. Maybe you’re a perfectionist like me and secretly it scares you to fail. Maybe you have a child with a disability or a shortened life expectancy and goal setting seems pointless. Can I offer you some encouragement?

Set some goals anyways!!

You’ll be surprised at how many you accomplish. And the ones you don’t, transfer them over to next year and try again. That’s what we are doing with Gideon. We’re putting walking back on the list. He probably won’t accomplish it this year, but that’s okay. That’s why we’re giving him more than one goal.

Going forward, someone besides me needs to hear this- God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He already sent his Son Jesus to fill that role! As we outline our goals, it’s my prayer that first and foremost we would seek to draw closer to Him. God wants us just as we are…broken and imperfect. The beauty of the cross is that we don’t have to accomplish any goal before we come to Jesus. We can come just as we are and He’s faithful to take it from there.

Happy goal setting and Happy New Year!!