Nurturing Relationships

Last year was one of many changes for myself and my family.  http://www.fox2now.com/videobeta/365b4ae4-ac96-448d-a436-ce6abf1349d2/News/St-Charles-residents-cleaning-up-flash-flood-damage (See me in the Illinois t-shirt on the broadcast). After our rental home was flooded, we spend weeks utterly displaced before finally finding a new place to live. During this time, many of our family and friends came out of the woodwork to help us. Needless to say, we made it through and are all relieved to finally have some normalcy back in our lives (though it took many hard months to get here). 

Because of the struggles we faced last year, I realized how little time I spent regularly with many of my friends and family. We all get busy in the day-to-day mundane details of our own life that we rarely find time to nurture those outside relationships that also make life worth living. Communication with the support system of people we love can become reduced to Facebook wall posts, occasional phone calls, or visits on holidays or special occasions. That is no real relationship. One of my personal goals for the new year is to dedicate more time and energy to making sure the people I care about KNOW that I care. This can't be done through mere words. It takes action. So each week of this year, I am going to focus on one person in my life at a time, giving back in some way to those who are near and dear to my heart.

I can't wait to see how dedicating time to nurturing the relationships in my own life changes everything.