Last year, I wrote a blog post called My One Goal for 2019.
Sure, there’s a place for unique resolutions and specific goals, but I really liked having one over-arching goal for the year. It helped me focus my energies on intentional growth throughout my whole year.
My goal for last year was to choose joy intentionally.
This year, my one goal is to choose grace.
There’s a couple of different ways I want to do that.
The first is way that I want to intentionally choose grace is to show more grace to those around me.
Jesus has shown me an incredible amount of grace. He chooses to love me even though I don’t deserve it. He’s faithful when I’m not and He’s patient when I don’t understand. He still loves me, despite everything I’ve done.
I’m not like that. And I want to be more like that.
I want to choose to show grace to everyone in my life.
I want to choose to show grace to the people that disagree with me, to the people that hurt me, and to the people that struggle with different things than me.
Another way I want to choose grace this year is to show more grace to myself.
I’m can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes. I don’t like struggling, I don’t like waiting, and I don’t like healing.
I’m learning that it’s not only okay to show myself grace, but it’s critical to healing.
I’ve spent years beating myself up about things that are out of my control. I’m leaving that it 2019.
I want to start intentionally showing my body and my soul grace. Grace for the days where being sick sucks. Grace for the days where my heart hurts as much as my body. Grace for the days when I want to follow Jesus, but my heart isn’t in it.
Jesus is an amazing, beautiful example of gracious living and I’m choosing to follow that example this year.
I won’t be perfect at it. But I want to be better.
What are your goals for 2020? I’d love to chat about it!
Let me know in the comments what you’re leaving in 2019.
-Alathia
Alathia Hayes 
Giving grace to ourselves can be more difficult than giving it to others because we have our internal dialogue beating ourselves up. It helps me to stop and remind myself that is Jesus says I am forgiven, who am I to disagree? Love your post.
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I will share a link to your post in my post Saturday Dec 28 🙂
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Thank you so much!
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So lovely! Grace is so important but so hard – especially grace for yourself. (Maybe I also need to stop beating myself up/feeding myself lies…) Thank you for sharing!!❤
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You’re welcome, friend! Grace is definitely a battle, but it is worth fighting ❤
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Grace is never an easy thing for us to give ourselves! Kudos for taking this on this year!! You have been giving grace to many all this time but you did point out a few that are especially hard (people who disagree with me, hurt me, that struggle with different issues) and yes I agree! These tend to hurt our heart and therefore make it harder to pray for Grace and give them Grace! In the Bible it says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” James 1:5 We need wisdom to know how to go about giving Grace and how to let go or our hurt which in turn helps us going about and giving Grace. Praying for a Graceful year for you! I so enjoy reading your posts and so many of them touch my heart, so please keep them coming! (This comment was for me as well; a reminder of one of God’s promises that we can all use and as often as needed!)
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