A New Word For 2019
Today has been slow going. I mean....reeeeeeallllllly slow going. I have showered, washed my face, or brushed my teeth and it's 4pm. My kids have been building forts and making clubhouses, playing with new video games, and zooming through the house on scooters and hover boards. It's been an "indoor play" day and I have loved it. I've grazed all day and really had time to slow down and think.
You see I am addicted to moving. To going. To always checking things off the list and making lists, and thinking about making lists. It's my thing. Do you do that? Well I do. I have journals and journals and planners and notebooks FULL of lists. Grocery lists, gift lists, to-do lists, travel destinations, outing ideas, blog ideas.....lists. Before you feel like I am trapped by my lists, let me stop you. I LOVE THEM! I live for a good list. Even when I talk to my friends, husband, or kids, I talk in lists, "Number 1. You need to start eating what's in front of you before you concern yourself with what's for dessert. Number 2. I am not a restaurant and dessert is not on this menu. Number 3. It's Tuesday. Why would I feed you dessert on a Tuesday night when you have to go to bed in 30 minutes?" Lists.
We recently had a women's Christmas tea at my church and I MC'd the event. There were round tables that seated 9-10 per table and I would pose a question to everyone that would then be discussed at the tables. One of the questions was "Do you make New Year's Resolutions?" I was surprised to hear that no one at my table made resolutions anymore. It was all kinds of different answers. Some make a vision board (that's what I hear all the youngsters are doing these days). Some pray and ask God to give them a "focus word" for the year. Some journal and just remember the previous year as a means of gratitude journaling.
To be honest I haven't really done anything like that in years. I haven't reset my life or looked forward to something or asked for a word for the new year. Over the past few years I've just been so thankful to see the previous go, I didn't really look forward to anything set before me. I wanted to do something different this year. I wanted to be truly excited about a new year. A fresh start. So a few days ago I started compiling....you got it....a list!
But as I made this list, I didn't want to attach certain words to it because of the significance or weight or connotation they carry either with me personally or with society. For instance, the word "goals" is not where I want my 2019 list to fall under. You see, I am a VERY GOAL ORIENTED person. To the point where I will become tunnel vision and unhealthy in pursuit of achieving those goals. This list was contradictory to that action. The word "resolutions" in our culture is associated with failure. Those who make resolutions rarely achieve them or complete them. I've hear it so many times, "I've failed my resolutions." This list was too precious to me to stick that word on it. I didn't want to call it a vision board because I didn't want to be locked into any of it or feel let down if I didn't maintain it for a whole year. This list was a little too personal. It doesn't affect my family directly but will affect me so eventually they will benefit from the overflow. So what do I call this list? I sat on it for days. Not wanting to jump into anything just to call it done, which I do so very often. I felt to rush it was fighting directly against what the list was asking of me.
It was last night that the word was revealed to me. Sitting in my kitchen at 11:30pm with a house guest, Abigail Roberts, her face lit up as I was telling her my dilemma. She pulled out her notebook and said "I actually was thinking about this yesterday and wrote this word down!" Let me set the stage a little more. Abigail is staying with us while she attends a conference. She is one of the beautiful lives the Lord allowed Josh and I to speak into for a number of years as directors of a youth and children's track to a conference in the Middle East. We have been pouring into these kids lives for 9 years now and seen so many of them graduate, go to college and become amazing adults. Now here she sits, in my kitchen teaching me...it was beautiful.
She looks me in the face and says, these things on your list are not goals or resolutions. They are invitations. That was it! It was like a light went off and my spirit felt as ease. Why now was I getting a list for a new year? Why now was I excited about a fresh start when I haven't been for so long? It is because I am being invited. Invited to grow, to bloom, to reset, to prioritize, to repurpose, to refocus. I am being invited to experience grace on a level that I not only haven't before but that I need. I am being invited to love deeper, be braver, and embrace contentment.
So this is my official RSVP to 2019. I'm in.
