#myoneword
Yesterday I stumbled across a website online. It's called One Word 365. The basic premise of the site is to forget your New Year resolutions and choose one word for the New Year. One word to focus on. One word to impact all your choices. One word to flavor, if you might, the entire next year. Go ahead and click the link and check it out. I will still be here waiting on you when you are done.
Nifty concept, eh? I thought so.
Did you join? I did.
What's your one word? (Would you be willing to share this journey with me? Please?)
I have often looked back on life and given myself a theme for things experienced. I have also even labeled current experiences with a theme, but for some reason it never dawned on me to plan a theme before hand. Talk about living intentional.
The whole one word for the next year is a little scary! Okay, okay, whatever, seriously. It's a whole lot scary.
Maybe that is why it took me a really long while to decide on mine. I spent a good bit of conversation time with God before I decided.
Here are a few of the words I wrote down: healing, trusting, loved, beloved, worthy, victorious, fearless, brave, courage, stronger, strength, faith, be, now, today, breathe, celebrate, beautiful, treasured, sacred, determined, choose, more, truth, perspective, laughter, joy, embrace and changed.
But honestly, most of those words are the flavor to things that have happened. Or are happening. What about what's to come? This is a plan ahead word. Not a has been word or even a now word... Cause, see here, next year is a BIG year for me. If you have read anything I have written about recently at all you already know some of the reasons why. Okay, so the one main reason why...
If the Lord wills, cause "we make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps" (Proverbs 16:9 NLT) we will return to Papua New Guinea in July of 2015. However we will return a ridiculously shrunken group, leaving Taylor and Tia here in America for college. We will return to living on the other side of planet Earth missing two of our core six.
Yowsas.
Other big things are happening in 2015.
Dude! Marty and I will be married for TWENTY years in April of next year. Twenty years. Longer married than single, but that happened this year too. Actually that happened two years ago. This is certainly something to be celebrated. Here is a picture of us almost twenty years ago, just cause I know you are curious.
Let the oohing and aawing commence...
I won't turn 40 in 2015, but I will be 39. One last year before 40. I suppose that is something to celebrate as well.
Like I said. BIG year. A second move as an adult to the other side of the planet, two kids leaving home at one time, twenty years of marriage and the last year before I am the big four-ohhhhhhhhhhh.
And those are just the things I am anticipating happening. Never mind you the things I have no idea about. Or rather, never mind you the things the Lord is protecting me from knowing. I am so thankful for my finite mind, and for my God who is perfectly trust worthy.
"those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalm 9:10 NKJV
Fearless was a word that I thought long and hard on. The stuff that I am facing in 2015 leaves me shaking in my boots. But, nope, I didn't feel God telling me this was #myoneword.
Brave was also a word I initially clung to. However, again, not #myoneword. Brave feels like my now. Not my what is to come.
Then I remembered this scene.
Nifty concept, eh? I thought so.
Did you join? I did.
What's your one word? (Would you be willing to share this journey with me? Please?)
I have often looked back on life and given myself a theme for things experienced. I have also even labeled current experiences with a theme, but for some reason it never dawned on me to plan a theme before hand. Talk about living intentional.
The whole one word for the next year is a little scary! Okay, okay, whatever, seriously. It's a whole lot scary.
Maybe that is why it took me a really long while to decide on mine. I spent a good bit of conversation time with God before I decided.
Here are a few of the words I wrote down: healing, trusting, loved, beloved, worthy, victorious, fearless, brave, courage, stronger, strength, faith, be, now, today, breathe, celebrate, beautiful, treasured, sacred, determined, choose, more, truth, perspective, laughter, joy, embrace and changed.
But honestly, most of those words are the flavor to things that have happened. Or are happening. What about what's to come? This is a plan ahead word. Not a has been word or even a now word... Cause, see here, next year is a BIG year for me. If you have read anything I have written about recently at all you already know some of the reasons why. Okay, so the one main reason why...
If the Lord wills, cause "we make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps" (Proverbs 16:9 NLT) we will return to Papua New Guinea in July of 2015. However we will return a ridiculously shrunken group, leaving Taylor and Tia here in America for college. We will return to living on the other side of planet Earth missing two of our core six.
Yowsas.
Other big things are happening in 2015.
Dude! Marty and I will be married for TWENTY years in April of next year. Twenty years. Longer married than single, but that happened this year too. Actually that happened two years ago. This is certainly something to be celebrated. Here is a picture of us almost twenty years ago, just cause I know you are curious.
Let the oohing and aawing commence...
I won't turn 40 in 2015, but I will be 39. One last year before 40. I suppose that is something to celebrate as well.
Like I said. BIG year. A second move as an adult to the other side of the planet, two kids leaving home at one time, twenty years of marriage and the last year before I am the big four-ohhhhhhhhhhh.
And those are just the things I am anticipating happening. Never mind you the things I have no idea about. Or rather, never mind you the things the Lord is protecting me from knowing. I am so thankful for my finite mind, and for my God who is perfectly trust worthy.
"those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You." Psalm 9:10 NKJV
Fearless was a word that I thought long and hard on. The stuff that I am facing in 2015 leaves me shaking in my boots. But, nope, I didn't feel God telling me this was #myoneword.
Brave was also a word I initially clung to. However, again, not #myoneword. Brave feels like my now. Not my what is to come.
Then I remembered this scene.
For all my limited access internet users (or anyone else out there that cannot see the attached video clip) I will help you out. This is the scene from the first Hunger Games movie. The one where President Snow is talking with Seneca Crane in his rose garden about the games and "why do we have a winner". President Snow says, "Hope is the only thing stronger than fear." He says in order to keep the games alive that hope must be contained. "A lot of hope is dangerous."
I know these statements are not doctrinally sound. That's not where I am going. It just got me to thinking... Hope can be stronger than fear, can't it? Not the only thing stronger, but certainly one thing that is - if, if, if, and only if - your hope is sound.
"Oh, Lord, You alone are my hope." Psalm 71:5a NLT
As it seems to me, my only choice for #myoneword in 2015 is hope. Hope from Him.
"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him." Psalm 62:5 NIV
Hope in His Word.
"You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in Your Word." Psalm 119:114 NIV
Hope that will not return void!
"So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void." Isaiah 55:11 NKJV (Good thing too, huh? Especially since I am investing my life and my children's lives in it!)
Hope I have already been given!!! Hope that belongs to ME. Sara. Sara's hope.
"We were given this hope when we were saved." Romans 8:24 NLT
Hope for me. Hope for you. Hope for them. Hope for all the world.
"His name will be the hope of all the world." Matthew 12:21 NLT
Jesus is my hope. And #hope is #myoneword for 2015.
What's yours?
Hi Sara! OneWord led me to your post! Hope's a good word for 2015. Here are some of my thoughts on my 2014 word-- my 2015 word is a different story for a different blog :-) --http://thesecondstories.wordpress.com (PS sorry if this comment came out twice... feel free to just post this one, ha!)
ReplyDeleteLove your two blog posts about hope. I have chosen the same word for 2015 but have yet to turn my thoughts into words. I have always been fascinated by that scene in The Hunger Games - "Hope is the only thing stronger than fear." What a true and constant hope we have in Jesus. Praying that God will daily minister to you His perfect hope and teach you to look forward with joy and expectation.
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