The One Where I Choose A Word 2017 edition

Although I've continued to choose a word or a phrase to focus my thoughts on during the year, like making a resolution, I haven't updated the word or my thoughts in subsequent years.

2014 - Trust

2015-  Progress (not perfection)
2016 - Hope and Worth

On an odd day in December as I read The Greatest Gift and listened to Pandora a familiar favorite, what I consider to be a comfort song.  Hope Now by Addison Road played.

If everything comes down to love

Then just what am I afraid of

When I call out your name

Something inside awakes in my soul

How quickly I forget I'm Yours

I'm not my own

I've been carried by You
All my life 

Everything rides on hope now
Everything rides on faith somehow

When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free 

When my life is like a storm

Rising water all I want is the shore
You say I'll be okay

And make it through the rain
You are, my shelter from the storm

I'm not my own
I've been carried by You
All my life

Everything rides on hope now

Everything rides on faith somehow

When the world has broken me down
Your love sets me free 

You've become my heart's desire
I will sing your praises higher 

Cause your love sets me free
Your love sets me free
Your love sets me free

I needed that comfort on that odd day.  It was the salve for wounds that still require healing, scabbed over places not exactly closed.   In that moment, there was hope.  Hope now.  And it's true, everything rides on it.

Day 19 of The Greatest Gift has some poignant words that got right to the point, to the heart of the matter of the things that matter.

"We lose every single person we love. There is never another way.  Think about that too long and you find it hard to breathe.... Fear is always this wild flee ahead.

Olives fail.  People fail.  Dreams fail.  You feel like you fail.  A thousand things mount.  Somedays it's hard not to panic.  You can feel it - we are driven by the fear of failure.  For all our frenzied running around, could it be that we are actually fleeing - trying to escape all the fears? All this pain? All this failure?  We all live in these lives of quiet terror.  Of soundless, hidden grief.  You could just bow your head in the quiet and weep for all that isn't.  For all that you aren't.

In the barrenness of winter, Habakkuk offers this gift to always carry close:  rejoicing in the Lord happens while we still struggle in the now.   Struggling and rejoicing are not two chronological steps, one following the other, but two concurrent movements, one fluid with the other." (Chapter 19, Page 188-189, Ann Voskamp)  

and hope now plays in the background, if I listen closely, it has always played in the background of my life.

There is hope, now.  Hope in the now, in the present, for the future, for this life.  

HOPE.   A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable.   Hope differs from a wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired or the possibility of possessing it.  Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety.

Worth or Worthy

A few friends and I are reading Savor by Shauna Niequist.  It's a 365 devotional type book with recipes.  Recipes, Y'all!!  The type of recipes I refer to as "food of love".   Anyway, it begins with an entry January 1st; this paragraph jumped off the page at me.

"You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of the super and the natural."

Worth.  Know it.  Know your worth.  Your desirability, excellence, importance, the weight of your intrinsic value, worthiness.

WORTH.   Value, that quality of a thing (a person) which renders it useful or which will produce an equivalent good in some other thing (or person).    Excellence. Dignity.  Value.  

The One Where I Choose A Word

2017 One Word Update here.  HOPE.



So it's one of those mornings where I have a stretch of silence.  I catch up on some reading.  I check Facebook to find a number of new posts.  Blogs I follow.

Ann Voscamp is one such blog.  I don't know where I've been that I didn't hear about her until this summer.  But I found her!  And her words speak to the soul of me, in ways that I've needed to hear (I think) all my life.  She's the girlfriend, she's the Titus 2 woman you I have hoped for, and I don't even know her.   Heaven awaits the day I do!

Her Blog today is: How To Move Forward Into A New Year when you feel like you failed last year

"What if everyone is making New Years Resolution and you just want New You Solutions" "Sometimes you can hardly trust your legs, trust turning and taking the next step" "Falling Apart? Fall into What.Ever.Comes.Next FORWARD!"  "Fearful? Forward!" 

And in that blog is this one, well several links, but his is the one I read: Fear's the first step of faith

"The things in my life that require faith are the things that terrify me"
"Fear offers two routes: Flee or Faith. High tail-it or Trust"

I go back to the first post and read her "footnotes" below which leads me to this blog: What the New Year Needs Most A Blog about naming your year.  A name for your year.  Interesting.  I haven't heard of this concept.  I read on.  She talks about euchristeo and names her new year koinonia.  Greek words.  I love greek words.  How they get right to the heart of the matter.  No need to wonder if it's there, they're or their.  Nope.  The greek is straightforward.  This word means this and (generally) only this and in the event it means something else, the root word for that something else is clear and certain.

I flip back to Facebook.  More posts.  More blogs. Sarah Bessey (another writer/blogger I found through blog hopping) posts something interesting.  Something I hadn't seen before. SheLovesMagazine.  Wow, what a great organization! What a wonderful community!! Wow! I kept reading and reading and reading.  Wow!  And come to yet another One Word blog.

The part that resounded with me is "the underlying message (of making resolutions) seems to be who I am right now isn't making the cut"

A to-do list of life for the next year.  And sure we all want to lose weight, be intentional, save money, say no, recycle, unplug, eat healthier, save the world….the truth of the matter is we make the lists to feel better, to be enough.  Stop with the lists!

And that brings me to this OneWord365

I read through the suggested list:

Imagine, Different, Push, Celebrate, Believe, Thrive, Relentless, Finish, Transformation, Learn, Reduce, Grace, Today, Confidence, Health, Purpose, Unstoppable, Enjoy, Truth, Generous, Soar, Commit, Forward, Awake, Change, Focus, Invest, Peace, No, Fortitude, Empower, Curious, Direction, Opportunity, Embrace, Present, Ambition, Growth, Connect, Perspective, Persistence, Stewardship, Strength, Action, Adapt, Progress, Adventure, Selah, Mindfulness, Appreciate, Create, Optimism, Breathe, Integrity, Uplift, Simplify, Freedom, New, Rebuilding, Joy, Courage, Momentum, Trust, Reflection, Possibility, Sacrifice, Relax, Organize, Pause, Be, Listen, Ignite, Determined, Balance, Silence, Release, Faith, Resolve, Together, Dare, Revel, Love, Minimize, Discover, Choose, Diligence, Brave, Risk, Open, Transition, Slow, More, Shine, Live, Write, Battle. 

All of these words are good.  Good words.  I like several of them.  I should pick several of them.  I'm tempted to pick one per month!  But that's not the point of the exercise.   I need to focus.  Draw down.  Narrow my thoughts down to one that frightens me a bit. I do many of these words.  Am many of these words.   What's the word that I'm not?  That doesn't come easily?

Trust.  The passage that comes to mind is Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your path.

The Hebrew word is Batach, a verb, To Trust.
To Trust In
To have confidence
To be bold
To be secure

The Greek word is Elpizo, a verb, to hope.
To wait for salvation with joy and confidence.

Root Word: Elpis
Expectation of good, of hope
Joyful and confident expectation of salvation
The author of hope, of He who is it's foundation
A thing hoped for

Noah Webster defines it as:
Confidence, a reliance or resting of the mind on the integrity, veracity, justice, friendship or other sound principle of another person.

You can find Noah's Dictionary here.

All definitions lead to Confidence.

Interesting…. Confidence in Hebrew: Batach


Greek: Peitho verb  To Persuade

To be persuaded.
To believe
To listen to, to obey, to yield to, to comply with

TRUST

To trust in The Lord and lean not (support oneself)
To trust in myself, build on my strengths, learn from my weakness.
To trust in my relationships, believe the best in others.
To trust the journey, the road will rise up to meet me

To NOT trust in performance, perfection, perspectives, primes or prizes.
To NOT trust in ability, acceptance, attitudes, alternatives or achievement.

But to spend 2014 trusting, trusted, learning to trust, being a trustee.  It's scary, but as Ann said Fear is the First Step of Faith.  Let me be found being faithful.  Amen!