Thursday, January 1, 2015

2015 Word of the Year: REST

Last year I decided to choose a word of the year and embrace it for all it was worth. I chose the word brave, and I really thought that God was calling me to be brave with my Noonday Collection business, or with sharing the Gospel, or meeting people. Instead, God was calling me to be Brave in dealing with sexual abuse.

Can I just say that was (by far) the hardest thing I have ever done. It is super easy to give people excuses for their behavior and never deal with it. Trust me, I've been doing it for 25 years. It's also easier to tell yourself that only weak people go to counseling and you're not weak so you are fine (that's a lie...strong people go to counseling).  We bravely followed God into putting our adoption on hold. We have no idea why. Sweet Amelia had to have surgery a few days ago, and even though it is a routine surgery that happens often it takes insane amounts of bravery to allow your child to undergo general anesthesia for any amount of time. (So to all of you parents who have done that this year and your child was under for longer than 15 minutes....big hugs.)

A couple of Sundays ago the sermon was about Jesus being the true and better Moses. I had already started praying about my word for 2015 (I've been studying the life of Moses in BSF so I was completely prepared to sit and learn nothing), and God gently whispered REST.

Y'all, this past year of bravery has left me feeling tired. Probably because I have been doing a lot of hard work, but also because as much as I've been trying to follow God I've been fighting Him too. I've gotten mad, I've yelled, cursed, and just stopped talking to Him. And in all of that God reminded me that I need to rest in Him.

So during 2015 I'm going to rest. I'm going to physically rest, mentally rest and spiritually rest.

Do you have a word of the year? If so, what is it?