Everyone has a story. Perhaps you love your life. Perhaps you don’t like where you’re story seems to be heading. But until you take your final breath, no one really knows what all their story has to tell. Our plots take so many twists and turns that only God knows where they’re leading.
But that doesn’t mean we should just let life sweep us along, throwing at us whatever it brings, with no active response from us. The issues of life are meant to strengthen us. We are to learn and grow from them. Although God directs our steps, we are the participants in our own life, and He expects us to live it!
So, we’re going to take this turn of the calendar page, to do some reflecting, to help us more effectively actively participate in living life! I hope you’ll join us in these little exercises over the next few articles. If you created Artisan Journals with us last year, make one for this year for some of the exercises we’ll do here at freely whole throughout this year! (The tutorials are still up for free, for about another week.)
Core Values
What do you value most in life? What is at the core of the real you? Not things, but characteristics, which are so much deeper than the “things” of life. We each need to identify what we value most, so we can operate out of our “Big Circle”, as Leslie Vernick calls it. Living our lives by what is most valued by us.
Here’s a link to Brene Brown’s Core Values list. Download it. Print it out. Circle the things that mean the most to you. Then go back and and star your top 3-5 values. After you’ve identified your top core values, define each one. What do they mean to you? What does a life based on those values look like?
Add Creativity and Color to your Core Values words! And maybe font and shape. Use the WordArt online word cloud app, or do your own hand lettering, to design your “Big Circle” words into a creative visual, with color, shape, and style. Put your Core Value word cloud into your Artisan Journal. (We’ll be adding more pages throughout our journey, also.)
Keep your Core Values always before you. Look at them. Think about them. Act on them. Grow in them. These values will tell the story of your life that you desire.
Living Coram Deo
SDG!
~ Liberty
