January Recap - Bible, Books & Baking

It's been an interesting start to the new year.  We're almost finished with January, and I've already experienced some exciting things.  Makes me wonder what the rest of 2010 will be like.

One of the privileges I've had this month is to teach the lessons in our Word of Life Bible club every week for the whole of January.  Although I'm a Sunday school teacher, this was a larger group of kids, which included adults.  It was quite daunting at first.  Now that I've come through the other side of the challenge, I am pleased to discover that I enjoyed it.  It was a lot of work but worth it.

Also, something I hadn't shared with you at the start of the year was that I set some reading goals for 2010.  I knew I wanted to read more books than I had last year, but I wasn't sure what was attainable.  I thought 15 non-fiction books and 30 fiction books were a possibility.  Then I decided to keep a record of the number of pages I read and also a list of the books I complete with the date.  I got excited when I realized yesterday that I've already completed 4 books this month, and I'm in the middle of a novel right now that I think I can finish by the weekend.

Here's what I've read so far:

• Letter Perfect by Cathy Marie Hake (novel)
• The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner  (novel)
• Choosing Gratitude: The Journey to Joy by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Choosing Forgiveness: The Journey to Freedom by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

I found both of Nancy's books to be very convicting and spiritually challenging, especially in working through the personal application portions she includes.  I recommend both books!

Another new thing I'm starting is scripture memorization.  Judy had recommended working on this because of a radio broadcast she had heard talking about the importance of this spiritual discipline being incorporated into our lives.  I went and listened to the whole series on ReviveOurHearts.com (week of Jan. 4-8) and felt compelled to start working on it.  I plan to memorize Second Peter 1 and various other scriptures that are either part of Bible studies I participate in or scriptures that jump out at me during  my studies.

In addition to these things, I discovered after Christmas that I have a new enjoyment in baking {with all natural ingredients, of course}.  Not cooking, baking.  I told Rich that I would bake him a different batch of cookies every week for the fun of it, and he really liked that new year's goal.  I haven't quite kept up with the "one batch a week" goal, but I have baked a few cookies as well as a couple loaves of super delicious banana bread.  {Honestly, the best I've ever had.}  Baking has slowed down here in the last week, only because it's hard for me to watch my waistline expand with all those goodies in the house.  We'll have to see what we can do about that.

So I'd say January has kicked off 2010 for me in a very good way.  I'm looking forward to good things coming ahead. 

See you tomorrow for the Chat Pack.