2024. The new year hit me with anxiety. What would this year bring for our family and for our world? Several voices told me this year would be difficult and that we need to prepare. I am currently meditating and praying on what that means and will share the path I am guided down. As I was praying through this anxiety and discomfort that I was feeling a word popped into my mind, Grow.

I instantly knew that word would need to be my word, my theme for this year. Much of what 2024 holds for us is out of our control however, I can work to grow what I can control. The top area I want to grow for my family and me is our faith and understanding of God and growing in our faith as a family. Mid 2023 we found two churches in our town which we alternate every other week. This was an answer to many prayers for me and I am excited to grow our presence in these churches and listen for what God calls us to do.

Another area we want to grow in this year is financially. We have many goals, but one is to be able to give back more than we are currently able to and to do this, we need to find other financial opportunities. Inflation has taken a tremendous toll on us Americans and we need to find a way to combat it, since my feeling is it’s not changing anytime soon. Those who follow me on IG may have saw my post about Milk from this past week. One half gallon of organic milk is $6.29 at Stop & Shop. This is insanity. Luckily, I could find it $2 less at Trader Joe’s. This is just one example of how grocery bills have more than double in the past 3 years. Most companies are not compensating employees for rising costs as they are being told that inflation is on the decrease, or worse, is non-existent and somehow this narrative is being believed along with many other falsities. This leaves us to figure out how to navigate inflation ourselves.

Another area of growth for 2024 is my personal fitness level. Fitness has been a core part of who I am and what drives a level of happiness since High School. I’ve explored all types of athletic activities and ways of working out, from high impact to low impact etc. I’ve done various things since Zoey was born 3 years ago, but I’ve not gotten fully back to me and how I like to feel athletically. The latter half of 2023 was spent trying to get pregnant and I was given some bad advice from a doctor, who told me not to do anything high impact including running…2024 me, with some better advice and a better headspace is telling me I need to live. I can’t stop my life trying to get pregnant, baby number 2 may never be in the cards for us, and therefore I can’t live in waiting. I need to GROW. I’ve started AlphaFit, and it most resembles CrossFit of all the workouts I’ve done over the years. CrossFit was one of my true loves, so I am really happy to be on this path. I’ve got a lot of work to do but am confident over the next couple of months that I’ll start to feel more like myself.

The final area of growth I’ll expand on here is to clarify the item above. We would really love to grow our family. I would love nothing more than for Zoey to have a sibling to navigate life with. Pregnancy and being a mom are one of the most amazing gifts I’ve ever been given, and I desperately desire to experience bringing life into the world again! Every day I am praying God’s will for our family is to have another baby and I am doing my best to be patient, because God’s plan and timing is perfect beyond my own understanding, and he’s proved that in our lives time and time again.

I have some other skills I want to grow this year, such as gardening and bread making, and I’ll try my best to share throughout the year how all of this is going.

Once I had this word as a focus for 2024, my anxiety melted away. Who wants to join me in striving to grow this year? No matter what the year puts in our paths it will be an opportunity for us to Grow. How would you like to grow in 2024?