This year I am jumping on the "one word" train. If you are not familiar, instead of writing down a handful of resolutions you are bound to forget by January 10th, you chose one word to set the tone of your new year. I might not be able to DO a bunch of hocus pocus junk in a year, but surely I can take one word and APPLY it to my life in such a way that I find myself better able to serve others, care for myself, and grow spiritually.
This year I am choosing the word:
FLEXIBLE
What a terrible word for a control-freak, uptight mom of two. However, *sigh* I am putting my foot down and FLEXIBLE I will become.
I think the reason I want to chose this word, is because I truly want to embody the word in its fullest. I know, like I really do know, that life doesn't play out in a cookie-cutter fashion how I have planned it to do. Life happens, the cookies burn, I run out of icing, the sprinkles fall on the floor, I forgot to add sugar. Whatever. I am not flexible, and the more I try to hold on, the worse it is.
FLEXIBLE (adjective):
1. capable of bending easily without breaking (yeah, no not me)
2. able to be easily modified of to respond to altered circumstances or conditions (I'd like to pretend I can, but freak-out mode ensues)
3. ready and able to change so as to adapt to different circumstances (laughable, no)
Just because I yearn to be flexible, doesn't make me weak. Plastics, rubber, graphene, bamboo: these are all extremely flexible yet extremely strong materials. Their usefulness can increase with the degree of flexibility. Likewise, the more I am flexible, the more useful I can be in the lives of my kids, husband, friends, and total strangers.
So where do I start?
Scripture reminds me in Proverbs 29:11 that a fool always loses his temper, but a wise man holds it back. Well, then I need to be flexible with things are outside my control or don't go as planned. And Galatians 5 tells me that a fruit of the spirit is self-control. So when my type-A planner mode goes haywire because a child won't nap or I have an undocumented appointment, I must display self-control internally and externally. All of this because 1 Peter 5 tells me that my enemy, my adversary the devil is seeking too devour me. Every mishap, every freak out, every blood-boiling moment that doesn't go my way, is an opportunity for the enemy to convince me of hopelessness.
But I have hope, no matter what circumstances come my way. Christ is my hope because he died on the cross and rose from the dead; he has replaced my stone cold heart with a heart of flesh. He did this, in his perfect holiness, so that my stubbornness, my inflexibility, my ugly words, my lust, my umpteen more sins that happen day in and day out, so that my relationship with the Father would be restored and my sins forgiven. God sees me the way he sees Jesus, perfect, holy, blameless. Romans 5:8 promises me that despite knowing how insane and sinful and inflexible I am, Jesus still died for me.
- What is your word of the year?
- Have you done a "Word of the Year" before?
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