the single word
For the past four years I’ve been following the lead of my friend Alece over at Grit & Glory as she started her One Word 365 community.
The idea and the challenge is to pick one word – just one single word – to shape and define and strive toward for your year.
That somehow always feels more manageable than a list of resolutions that I know I’ll never keep anyway.
I hadn’t chosen my word last year when the bottom dropped out. It seemed as if all the words were being chosen for me in 2015. And I didn’t like any of them.
I suppose in a lot of ways – both big and small – by mid-year my word eventually found me and I had it put in permanent ink on my arm. Nevertheless.
(I think of that one more as a life word – I have no plans to tattoo every year’s word choice on my body – just in case you were wondering, Dad!)
I prayed about this year’s choice. Not because there is magic or holiness in a word choice. But because I have seen God use my former word choices to direct me and free me and hold me close over the course of a year. And so I think that’s worth some prayer.
I was particularly drawn to words of strength and endurance and overcoming. Words of action and promise and perseverance.
But they just kept seeming wrong.
They felt more like me striving to get an outcome by sheer force of will. (And I’ve got some force of will, friends.)
One word kept coming back to me but I really wanted no part of it.
It was too —- static. Too simple. Too inactive.
I wanted my word to be about something because I want my year to be about something.
In the end, though, this word kept popping up and resurfacing until I said, “Enough already, word. I hear you.”
(I didn’t actually say that. Not out loud nor in my head.)
I’m still struggling against it a little bit. It’s still chaffing me and it feels like the fit is a little off. (Which probably means I’ve chosen the exact right word.)
The word is –
(Sidenote: How gorgeous is that bed of moss? We spotted it on a recent hike and the color is just incredible. Is there a paint in that shade of green? Because I think there should be.)
Rest.
There are several layers to this one for me.
Rest is the exact opposite of what my heart craves. I want action. I want movement. Rest feels like standing still. Rest feels like apathy. Rest feels like failure.
But I think I hear this still small voice that wants to remind me that all my activity and all my movement and all my effort does not bring about the righteous life I desire. It just keeps me busy and distracted and unable to hear.
Rest is not striving.
And I think that’s my core need this year. To not strive.
I want to fix everything – to fix it all.
And. I. Cannot.
So I think this year my focus needs to be on rest and on allowing God to move and to work and to fix and to tame and to shield and to go before me.
To rest in His choice and in His security and in His stability and in His timetable. His movement on my behalf.
That sounds really hard.
Rest is the exact opposite of what my brain craves. I want to stay up later, wake up earlier (kind of), cram more things in and make the hours count.
My body needs sleep. My body needs restoration and life-giving energy and refreshing that only occurs during the sleeping hours.
I need to rest more. Literally. More hours of my night need to be spent asleep.
I need to rest more directly in the arms of a Jesus who says He loves me. Of a God who says He is for me. Of a God who says justice is in His hands and He is making all things right.
I don’t expect this to be an easy year or an easy word to accept.
I’d love to hear what word you have chosen (or what word has chosen you) and why you picked it!
8 Comments
Ticcoa
This is the first year I’ve actually been proactive/intentional about picking a word. For weeks, I searched for the right one, yet nothing seemed to stick. About three weeks ago, I was praying about it while driving home one night and it dropped into my heart. I didn’t want it; it was too weighty and too freeing at the same time.
Unbound.
Like Lazarus shedding his burial rags, an unfurling of the bonds that bind.
Here’s the blog I posted about it:https://choicerelics.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/unbound/
laceykeigley
Well goodness.
I just clicked over and read your post.
It’s a perfectly beautiful word. A heartfelt and deep and incredible post and I am so glad to read the words and the work of Jesus any and this unbinding process.
Wow.
kimmie
Have been contemplating your challenge since I first read about the 365 word project. Today, the LOED delivered my word, which at first glance seems ever-so-negative – NOTHING. Can you believe this is “my” word for the year? (I certainly couldn’t.) But, shortly after the word was delivered, I was reminded of Romans 8:38-39. Suddenly, the negative vibe was uplifted to the positive – NOTHING can separate me from His love! Neither struggles or fear or abnormal test results or disappointments or loneliness or uncertainty (my paraphrase) can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord! Thanks, Lacey, for the inspiration!
kimmie
*today, the LORD delivered*
laceykeigley
I love the word.
And I think sometimes when the word is a surprising one – it is quicker to recall to our minds.
And – your “nothing” is so true. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. What peace.
Lana
I think mine is HEAL. My heart needs to heal on many levels and my body needs to heal after years of natural alternative medicine to clean up infections and toxins. Healing takes way more patience than I have to be honest. It will involve rest which I am not good at but am learning. I used to be so sick and allergic to the world and I am so thankful to God for healing me.
Sara
So.
I like this idea in theory.
I liked your word and even thought it was an appropriate discipline for you to practice this year. ( I know you. 🙂 )
I liked this idea much less in practice when I only heard one word in my head.
One word.
One I stink at.
And truthfully have no desire to learn.
Wait.
I want to think and process and
DO,
for goodness sake.
I know how to work and fix and accomplish.
But.
I’m pretty certain God is saying
WAIT.
laceykeigley
Ugh.
That word is as lousy as rest.
And all that it implies is just as impossibly hard for people like us.