For a number of years now, I have been part of a group of Christian ladies on Facebook that chose a word to focus on for the year. A friend of mine set this group up and I felt honored to be included in a group of ladies focused on giving God the glory in our lives and using the fruits of the spirit ( love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) one word at a time, to really get to know Him better.
It has been amazing to me how the words that the group chose to focus on really seemed to fit our particular lives that year. In 2013, we found out about my father's cancer and unexpectedly around the same time, we were forced to move to a new house....finding PEACE in those situations was sometimes challenging but just having that word as a reminder of HIS timing was sometimes the only thing getting me thru...
And then in 2014, we found ourselves having to be PATIENT ....my father had many set backs that put him in the hospital. Living on the opposite side of the country made it almost unbearable... sitting by the phone waiting for news was a new way of life there for awhile and the day he had his stroke I decided to take the phone and go outside... I wasn't feeling the patience to just be still and so I spent much of that spring with a phone in my pocket and work gloves on my hands. I was finding my patience more in action that anything. I spent a LOT of time in my garden talking to God.That year was something I would have never chosen to have to go thru but looking back I learned so much and found a stronger connection to God than I ever thought possible.
After the great year of loss we'd had, I was going into 2015 with very much of a wounded heart. The online group I'd been part of was using the word KINDNESS but to be completely honest, I just wasn't feeling it. I had to find my own JOY again... It sounds silly to say that I needed to find joy when I know that it was all around me in so many things that I loved that truly did bring me joy but I was so numb from the losses we had in 2014, I needed to really feel the joy again. I tried to focus on the little things, I put that word around my house in every way I could. We would randomly find things at stores and in books or movies that really screamed JOY and my family all rallied around me and reminded me every chance they had that "JOY" was my word! Little did I know, that a purse I had specially made with the word embroidered on it would come in the mail the day my Gram died. God was really putting it on my heart to not forget the joy. That one three little letter word would change my outlook on even my darkest days.
Our lives are not our own, No matter how much we think we can control them. There will always be ups and downs in our days and weeks and months that we have absolutely no control over but we will always have the choice of how we react to them. Our lives would take another turn in 2015 that I haven't shared here on this blog. Our family welcomed in my 17 yr old step son and the dynamics of the life we had would be forever changed. Once again, there are good days and bad days when dealing with the life of a teenager but I hope that we welcomed him in a way that he could see God working in our lives and that he came to our home feeling loved and safe...
As we entered into 2016, it was really a mess of emotions and a lot of exhaustion. The fb group that I have been part of moved on to a new word for the year and chose GOODNESS. I kept waiting for God to really lead me to embrace a word but the direction just isn't coming so for now I will just wait for His quiet whisper ...
No comments:
Post a Comment