First I would like to welcome all my new subscribers. Thank you for signing up for my newsletters. I’m grateful for the opportunity to know you better. I hope you will be refreshed and challenged spiritually by what you find here.
Second, I want to thank all of you who e-mailed to say you would be praying for us during our planning weekend. We definitely felt your prayer support as we talked and prayed through some difficult situations and some important decisions.
I wanted to report back that the Lord was very faithful in answering your prayers for our planning time. We made several major decisions without any major disagreements – for which I am truly grateful. I don’t like conflict, but then I think most of you probably don’t like it much, either. It seemed like one of us always knew when it was time to either stop talking, take a break, or change the subject for a bit and come back to tender issues later. I’m so grateful for the “wind” of the Spirit blowing through our times together to refresh and renew us.
We also chose to leave several big decisions and revisit them in February, since neither of us had a clear idea of what the Lord was saying about them. We haven’t really done that before, but in this case I think it was really a wise choice.
Overall I feel refreshed and have a renewed vision for what the Lord is calling me to as an individual, and what He is calling us to as a family.
I am also more excited than ever about our Purposeful Planning materials. It has been such a blessing to be able to spend this time together as a family and to see what the Lord has done over the years.
Those of you who have read and used Purposeful Planning know that the first thing we do is go over our goals and objectives from the previous year to see what we’ve accomplished. This is probably one of the most encouraging things we do during our time away.
As I say in the book:
We begin our time together by going over our list from last year item by item and listing all the items we have accomplished or are working on. We usually spend the first morning relaxing, unwinding and going over what we have accomplished during the last year.
If this is your first planning weekend, I would suggest mentally going over your past year and listing things you accomplished or that are working well for your family.
We found it was good for us to start on a positive note. You can use our format to jog your memory. Now is NOT the time to remind your husband that he still hasn’t painted that bedroom you’ve been asking him to paint for three years! This is when you both think of what DID get done, what did happen that was fun, faith building, or uplifting for your family. Discuss your vacations; remind each other of the fun times. Did you have another family over for dinner? Did you visit family? Remember, baby steps count!
The following were our achievements in January 1998:
WHAT WE ACHIEVED OFF LAST YEAR’S LIST
July weekend alone
Painted children’s rooms and stairwell
Finished closets in basement
Finished basement stairwell
Cleaned all carpet
Moved a portion of our fence
Front landscaping in process/have Bachman’s plan
Replaced mirror on entry door
Attic cleaned – needs it again
Cleaned out a lot of areas
Painted fish t-shirts at cabin
Field trip to Capitol
Vacations – cabin twice, Yellowstone
Small group leaders/teaching Sunday School/elder
Finances – ok
Quiet time in place for Phyllis and girls
Emily – maturing, independent school work, great improvement on piano
Both girls working in church nursery and watching Fullers’ and Lees’ children/writing reports
Bekah – Big improvement on piano/persistent
Eric – doing well in math, spelling, and reading/improvement in sitting still in church
As you can see, we encouraged each other and ourselves by discussing our accomplishments, big and small.
From there we went on to discuss each area of our life and home as outlined in Purposeful Planning.
We have continued to offer our Purposeful Planning materials at incredibly discounted price because we really want to get them into the hands of the families who need them. We continue to offer our materials free to military personal and their spouses. If your finances are really stretched and even our discount prices are too much for you, but you think this material would be helpful, please contact me at Phyllis@Phyllis-Sather.com and I will see that you get a copy of the book.
I would love to have the opportunity to keep in touch with you. Please sign up to be notified of new entries and to receive my Free E-zine. (Your address will not be shared)
Phyllis Sather
Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness at:
http://www.Phyllis-Sather.com
© 2009 Phyllis Sather
All rights reserved
Contact me at: Phyllis@Phyllis-Sather.com
3 Comments
Georgetta
Thank you, Phyllis. At this point in our lives it is difficult to get a weekend away, so I have not attempted anything like a Planning Weekend. I think it would be a little intense for my artsy go-with-the-flow husband. And me…I’m still working on following a daily plan. Yearly is a little beyond me right now. 🙂
Georgetta
How do you put your goals from your planning weekends into practice? My husband and I talk about goals all the time, but we rarely accomplish any of them. LOL
Phyllis
That’s a great question!
I think part of the key is setting aside time together over several days like we do, and making this a priority in your life. Because we use vacation days to plan it would be silly to walk away and never do anything we discuss. Keeping the Lord first during this time makes us aware that we are seeking the things HE wants us to do – therefore they do become more than just a “to-do” list.
For instance, one of the things we’ve discussed for the last couple of years was how Dan could have more “real” time with our girls. We kept putting it down as something he would like to do, but since we never figured out a way to do it, it just hasn’t happened.
This year we got out our calendar, and determined the best time would be for him to take them to lunch after church once a month. Now that its on the calendar I’m very hopeful that we will do it.
That’s one thing we have learned about anything we feel strongly about having in our schedule, like husband/wife time – it goes on the calendar like any other appointment. Then if we are looking at our schedule to determine if/when we can do something we treat it like any other appointment and don’t just skip it.
We also refer back to our notes during our dates throughout the year. Living life on purpose becomes a very good habit if you practice.
In the book I tell the how during our 2006 planning time Dan asked me to write this book. I discovered in Dec. 2006 that I had forgotten all about it and made a quick attempt at getting started. If I hadn’t had it on our list and gotten convicted when I was reading it over “Purposeful Planning” would still be just another idea that never happened.
Do you have our material yet?
Let me know if this is helpful or if I can answer any other questions.
Blessings, Phyllis