Yes, I know it is July 1, not January 1. The reality is, I only recently, in the past weeks, figured out a feasible plan for this year. I normally follow some plan to read through the entire Bible in a year, plus read a devotional as well. I keep a journal to jot notes of what I am learning. I have done this since 2000. Each year has the same overall plan, but the details vary. Well, last year started out on track as normal. Shoulder surgery threw a bigger interference than I had anticipated. I had stayed on track after hip surgeries, surely I could after shoulder surgery. That was not the case. Instead, I found inability to use my left arm at all really interfered with holding a Bible, devotional book, notebook, writing, etc. I have been getting Streams in the Desert via email for years, but I like my print copy version better. I started just reading the emails. I tried to catch up with Bible reading later after surgery once I could hold books and take notes better again. I was so far behind, that it was daunting. I kept working at it anyway. I had an inpatient surgery at not quite four months post-op shoulder. I planned to do my reading in the hospital, but knew it might be via phone only. What I did not expect was being so sick that I could not keep up with basics via phone, an emergency later surgery, moved to ICU, in the hospital a total of three weeks. I was so weak, I had no energy for anything. Even once home, it took time to regain my strength. It was also already the new year with no time to catch up or plan. Energy went into recovery. I sort of floated along for a while. I went back to reading Streams in the Desert on my phone. I knew I needed more, but could not figure out what to do. I did not want to pick up where I left off last year as I would just feel behind. Then, I thought maybe I could pick up where I left off last year and use the rest of this year to finish. But, I have more surgery coming. It is still challenging to read, write. I also did not want to get trapped in feeling like I had to complete something and working so hard to finish that I missed the message. With prayer, I came up with the following plan. I am still reading Streams in the Desert via email via phone. Additionally, I am now also reading Daily Light on the Daily Path and My Utmost for His Highest, also both via email via phone. My Utmost for His Highest has a link at the end of each day to a One Year Bible plan daily reading, with a passage from both Old and New Testaments. This appealed to me as it is all electronic, can all be done with my phone, it is a different format for Bible reading, and my three favorite devotionals. The Bible reading directs to Bible Gateway, has the exact passages linked, is using New American Standard Bible version. This fits in with my past reading plans, but is different. There is no urgency for completion. I have missed a couple of days and it is alright. The journaling portion I am still struggling with. I had the brilliant idea of copy/paste screen shots of the readings, but on day two of this, Evernote informed me I had used over 50% of my storage. That ended that experiment. The next idea was to copy and paste the links from emails into Evernote, then jot notes from there. However, technology is not really my strength and I cannot figure out how to get the links from the emails on my phone. I can on computer, but that sort of defeats the purpose. Thus, for now I have a reading plan, but no journaling plan. I can use the names of the devotionals, or passage from Scripture as headings in Evernote and jot notes underneath, but would really like to be able to link directly. Grateful to have a plan that works for me at this time.
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