Happy New Year, friends!
The other evening I had an idea to come up with 2019 things I’m thankful for throughout the year. That’s 5.5 things per day and 39 things per week. Lucky for you, I’m not going to share of all them with you, but believe me – I thought about it!
I’ll admit that I’ve done the thankfulness journals and I find that I’m normally a pretty grateful person. I know all the ways I’m blessed, but I don’t often document them. However, something has been pressing on my spirit to recall things to my mind more often, and to sit in a place where I’m more often thankful and less often questioning.
This past year has left me with a lot of questioning and I’m just not willing to take that into this new year with me. What are some things you’ve decided not to take into the new year with you? Have you called them out by name and maybe heavily rebuked them in the name of Jesus like this crazy girl might have done?! 😉
As some of you know, I like to choose a word for the year and allow my heart to focus on that word and allow my mind to consistently be pulled back into that train of thought when I start to find it wandering into the unknowns. And I still plan to mostly do that this year, with a twist, though.
I will have my word for the year, but I also plan to have one for each month. I think one of the things that can sometimes hurt me is being too macro-minded when I haven’t spent enough time being micro-minded. This year, the intent is to do both. Who wants to be on this wacky ride with me? C’mon… you know you wanna!
So, the word for the year is… Purpose. That word was given to me for so many reasons. I’m at a fork in the road; this way or that way. Am I going to choose the easy road or the one where my purpose lies? Does my purpose lie down both of them, just a bit differently? In fact, what is my purpose? I’ve thought I’ve known it for a long time, but maybe I don’t know it at all! See why it’s my word, but also why it needs baby words to go with it??
My word for January is stretching. I’m totally stealing it from a message series that was announced last week at church and the first part of the series happened today. I have no shame in this thievery!
February: Revealing – this will be a time to get real with myself and to reveal my weaknesses, failures, brokenness, strengths, desires, etc…
March: Exploration – to be fair, the first 10 days or so of the month, I’ll be on a trip part work and part pleasure. I hope to spend some time exploring the world around me, but also myself inside that world. I’m hoping for a lot of good, quiet moments in March!
April: Energy – where is a natural place for my energy to pour over? When I exude energy that brings me joy, what does that most often look like?
May: Service – this is typically a really busy month for me. Like really busy. So, my service might look like one thing, but God is teaching me something totally different. Also, where else or how else can I be serving amidst my own chaos so that I’m able to focus more on others than on myself.
June: Reflection and Gratefulness – this is my birthday month, and I like to spend some time reflecting anyway, so now I’m doing it with some intent behind it!
July: Growth – as I get closer to understanding my purpose, how am I growing it? Learning it? Mastering it? This is the time to settle into the purpose and allow God to show me where I need to grow in it.
August: Audience – once I know my purpose, and then grow my purpose, who is the audience for it? Where should I be directing the energy and the service and the purpose? August may not give me those exact answers, but I hope to learn more about what my audience might look like in this month.
September: Rooted – I hope that once I know my purpose, grow in it, find my audience for it, God will allow me to find a solid root system to keep me pressing into that purpose. The root system will be the people whom He assigns to this mission with me, I kinda mess the whole people thing up when it’s left up to me.
October: Expectation – this is pretty self explanatory. Prayer and expectation this month.
November: Action – what is God calling me to do exactly? Am I ready to actually put action to it? If being a master gardener is my purpose – what am I doing? By the way, being a master gardener is likely not my purpose. Who knows, though. 😉
December: Rest and Replenish – it’s been a long year by this time. With all the other busyness of this month, I’m going to look forward to resting in my purpose, asking God to replenish me for the upcoming year, and reminding myself that some good progress was made in 2019!
* I reserve the right to move these words around throughout the year! heh.
I also feel like I need to say that I really don’t like the whole “what’s your purpose” terminology/semantics/wording. I’m a much bigger fan of knowing my why… why am I here? why am I the one who can do this? why am I the one whom God called for this particular thing? why do I need to be here to do this? God might wish I didn’t ask so many why questions, but then I figure He made me and knew I’d ask them – He made me still. 😉
unfolding lovely 