What's the Word

     You know those people who pick a word for the year and then stick with it and live by it over the next 12 months? You know those people who have it all together, have some intense focus and are able to commit to one topic for an entire year? Yeah, I am not those people. I have never understood how to do such a thing. It’s just one word, how could this be that hard. The truth is that resolutions have never been my thing and maybe that’s because January tends to be a really hard month for me to get motivated in. This year I started off with the stomach flu given to me by my 2 year old who had a nasty case of it the day before.. There was very little rest and health happening that first week of January. While others were posting about crushing 2019, I could barely lift my head up,  forgetting to feed and clothe my own children, let alone have time to start crushing goals. I think we all know when we are physically down and out it doesn’t take much of a stretch to become emotionally and spiritually down and out. How quickly we can go to asking if God has forgotten us when we are up in the wee hours of the night with a puking toddler. Our focus and perspective shift so much when our health is threatened even by something so minor as the flu, yet alone a major illness.  So 2019 did not start off on a good foot, but truth be told it wasn’t all due to illness. The last few Januarys have been incredibly difficult. January 2017 I was in the darkest place of my life. I was just a few short weeks out from my life shattering in pieces. I had lost 15 pounds in 1 month.  Anxiety and depression surrounded me. So many questions and not many answers. I had booked a plane ticket for the end of the month to go back to Texas and face my heartache head on while saying goodbye to the life I had been building for years. The last day of January 2017, I walked out of a county jail, out of the home I had raised my babies in, and out of the city that my heart had grown to love. So many goodbyes that my heart could barely handle. During that time, I heard a family member describe my future as bleak, and I couldn’t get that word out of my head. It echoed through my mind daily. Bleak means cold, miserable and unlikely to have a favorable outcome. Yep that sounded about right. If I were the kind of person to have a word of the year, I may have chosen that one, BLEAK. I know, not very inspirational.   

      January 2018 was another incredibly difficult start to a year. That first week of the year I found myself in a lawyer’s office officially signing papers to dissolve my 6 and half year marriage. This was a place I would never have imagined being. I sat in the waiting room as an older man walked out sobbing great big tears and mumbling something about still loving her. My eyes were wide and my heart was broken.  Was this seriously my life?  I was a big fan of marriage. In fact, I was always the one who told people how beautiful  and fun marriage was. I may have been known to say ‘The worst day married is better than the best day single”. I now know how crazy that sounds, but just like so many Instagram posts I read, life was beautiful because I had my best friend beside me and together we could get through anything! #marriagerocks #myman We were a team united against the world and changing it for the better not matter what comes our way or so I thought. Signing those papers felt exactly like a death had happened, yet no one was bringing me casseroles and everyone around me was going about with their daily business. So it was a private and confusing death that I was grieving.  I felt the loss immensely.  GRIEF.  If I were to have chosen a word that January, GRIEF might have been it. Again, not the most inspirational word to start a new year but that is reality. 

       So that brings me back to this year. January 2019. I started the first week of the year sick and sad. On New Years Day I tried to journal about past victories from 2018 and future goals for this year, yet the words wouldn’t form on my leather-bound journal. I just couldn’t make them appear. I tried to figure out how I was feeling. I found myself gripped with fear and anxiety when I tried to look ahead. I was fearful to begin to hope for something good this year. I have too many journals that have started off with hope and anticipation and closed with heartache, broken promises and loss.  I was cynical as I scrolled through social media and noticed all the excitement and hope people had. Truthfully, I thought these people were naïve to be so positive because they have no idea what’s around the corner. How am I supposed to hope? I started asking that question. Is it even responsible or wise to hope for good things? I don’t want to hope for things to get better because I am not promised that they will be. I also know that I am not to be stuck in negativity and fear. What is the balance here?  I stood in church one Sunday in January singing a favorite of mine called “Cornerstone”. It starts off “my hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus name”. Literally l it was like a light bulb went off in my head. My hope isn’t on positive circumstances or even being happy, it is in Jesus. I sang that chorus out with tears streaming down my cheeks. The same song I sang with my husband right beside me so many times before. " Christ alone, Cornerstone, the weak made strong in the Savior's love". I have learned this lesson so many times. I have spoken publicly about this exact principle, yet I keep forgetting it. My spiritual amnesia is real you guys!  We cannot put our earthly hope in a successful career, healthy kids, safety and security or a beautiful marriage. That isn’t wrong to do, but we must do so open handedly knowing there are no promises or guarantees in any of that. We just might be disappointed and hurt and that’s life in this broken world. However we must remember that we have a heavenly hope that never disappoints. He never changes. He is faithful. He is kind. He is gracious. He never breaks promises. He has offered us life abundant when we follow after Him.   That is the hope I can get behind.

          So what’s my word for 2019? I am going to cheat and pick two words. Is that even allowed?  The first one would be HOPE. Oh how I want to keep my hope in the right place and hold on to what Jesus offers me each and everyday;  a HOPE that this is not all there is, a HOPE that I can find joy in the hardest of circumstances, and a HOPE that He is always with me through it all.  Because I am human, I will fail and find myself misplacing my hope in worldly things and dreams, but God is gracious to keep reminding me to look up to Him and him alone. Psalm 62:5- Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. 

     Since I am making these rules up, my second word would be PEACE. (Shout out to all my fellow Enneagram nines!!) It is easy for fear and anxiety to take hold of me, always expecting the worst case scenario to become true (because it has!). I so badly want to exchange that fear for a peace of mind. How do I begin to do that? I have felt paralyzed with decisions I have to make this year that will bring change to our family rhythm. I feel the weight of going through life alone without a companion to share the load and responsibility with. I feel the fear as I lock up my classroom late at night on a dark campus. And oh how fear creeps in when my kid spikes a fever or falls headfirst into a coffee table. So much fear. all day every day. Today as I was sitting in my favorite local coffee shop sipping my most perfect latte, I pulled out my old worn out Bible and turned to Philippians 4. There I read, previously underlined and starred, “Don’t worry about anything, but instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for what he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace which exceeds anything we can understand. HIs peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” What a beautiful reminder I was given once again. True peace comes from throwing  fear at the feet of Jesus. He takes that fear and exchanges it for peace, we just have to ask. Some days, we may have to ask multiple times a day, but thankfully he is not keeping track. He welcomes us and in fact commands us to come and lay it down. "Cast all your anxiety on Him for he cares for you."1 Peter 5:7

    So here we are in February. We survived January and we should be proud. Especially if you  live in the area of the country I am in and went through some record breaking miserably cold temperatures known as the polar vortex. It's time to move forward and maybe I am becoming a word(s) of the year kind of person? I don't know I still feel like thats' a big commitment. I mean how do I know now what word I will need 10 months from now? Thats a bit too far out for me. So here's what I will do. I will be a word of the month kind of person. This February I choose to focus on HOPE and PEACE in my life and when March rolls along I pray that I will be reminded of these beautiful truths once again.