My 2021 Word of the Year - Episode 13
Well, it’s New Years Eve. Can you believe it? Who knew 12 months ago that 2020 would be the year that it has been? From fires in Australia, the loss of Kobe Bryant and his beautiful daughter. Tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes and a little thing called Rona. Our world has been rocked by hard, awful, ugly pain and loss this year. While I would love to sit here and say, “bring on 2021 and all of the goodness!” I’m smart enough to know that we are not yet on the other side of the pandemic, and there are many more days of navigating the hard places of this virus. We will continue to be shaped, for better or worse, by COVID – and I pray that we choose to be shaped for the better.
So, as we face another year head on, lets talk about New Year’s traditions. Do you set goals? Resolutions? Do you eat black-eyed peas? Do you stay up to watch the ball drop or are you in bed well before the clock strikes midnight? Is New Year’s Day the day you pull down all of the Christmas decorations – or are they already packed away waiting for next year (or will you leave yours up until Valentine’s Day? Hey, no judgement from me – as a matter of fact, after the year we’ve all just endured, I say they could stay up as long as you want!
Here’s a question for you. Do you set your course for the coming New Year with a Word of the Year?
I began incorporating this practice back in 2007. Yep – 14 years. Back then I was an avid scrapbooker and there was a woman in the industry who came up with the idea of One Little Word (Ali Edwards and the OLW changed my New Year’s traditions forever that year). Of course, back then it started as a theme to scrapbook around all year long. Over the years it has really become a true way that God has drawn me closer to him. Some people ask how I choose my words of the year? I don’t really think I choose them now. I think God sets them in motion many months prior to December 31st.
First, let me share a few of my words over the years: Balance, Grow, Surrender (that one was a hard year – it was for 2018, the year after our son dies in 2017). Then there was Grace, the two-word combo of Say So (as in “let the redeemed of the Lord say so…”). My word for 2020 was Rhythm.
Now, how do I even get to a place where I have a word for the year? Well, like I said, it begins months before the end of the year. Of course, in the beginning it was truly a fun way to add a theme to the year of scrapbooking. It has since become more of a way that the year becomes framed for my spiritual and personal growth – and it is more God who chooses it for me than it is me choosing it for myself.
After the few years of it just being a way to enable purchasing more scrapbook supplies, I began to pray about it many months before the holidays. Thinking about it now I can remember the first year I actually began to ask God to show me how He would set my theme for the coming year…it was in 2013. That year was such an incredibly hard year in my career – and it had followed an equally hard 6 months in the last half of 2012. In July of 2013 I transitioned into a position that had me working almost exclusively with clients in the Asia Pacific region and some in Europe. This meant my days and nights were upside-down. The stress of the job itself was insane (as a side note, before you criticize pharma companies or clinical trials – remember that you might not understand all that goes on behind the scenes. It is brutal work all the way around). So, in September of 2013 I found myself exhausted, shedding copious tears and falling on my face seeking God’s direction for the coming year. Things couldn’t stay the same, and I needed Him to frame the coming year – I couldn’t frame my own year in my selfish, broken state. And I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. I read the Bible. I read devotions and studies on seeking His face and His will. Every time I would close my Bible the same word would be written in my journal somewhere. Every…single…time… Seriously, for 3 months, from September to the 1st of December it was the same word in one or more paragraphs of my journal. I didn’t like the word and I was desperate to find another one.
Now, if you are a Christ follower, you know that when God sets the course, there really isn’t many ways of changing that course unless He wants it to be changed. So, I surrendered to the word.
What was it, you ask?
Steadfast…
Yep, my Word of the Year for 2014 was Steadfast.
I likened the word steadfast to the same as patience. I didn’t really pray for patience because I know that you get put in places where that has to be practiced. I assumed, and not wrongfully so, that steadfast would place me in circumstances where that had to be put to the test. That statement is such an epic understatement I cannot even put it into words. If I told you what 2014 held for me, it would blow your mind. I honestly could not believe it – and really, I still look back on that year and wonder how I ever made it through. But God. I leaned into him and steadfastly persevered. I became a Gigi that year, and I also ended the year having walked away from my job in September, and on a recovery trip to Park City, Utah, a week after my last day (recovery from the cyclone that lead to my leaving…not recovery from addiction!), I began asking God for His theme for my coming year. And to be honest, I did so with one eye closed because I was a little nervous after His last choice.
But he got me through 2014 – stronger, wiser and closer to Him than ever before – so I was going to trust his choice for 2015.
In 2015 my word was Grow. And grow I did. I began the year by starting my own business sewing custom nursery items, and in September of that year our son was diagnosed with cancer that would end up taking his life in 2017. My word for 2016 was Balance – and really, that’s a word that should probably be repeated because I walked that year in my own strength trying to carry myself and our family and keep us all from falling apart. It didn’t work and I didn’t find balance in any part of my life…it only seemed like it because I was in control freak mode. 2017 I don’t remember what my word was – that year was a blur and I’m sure I could go back and find it in my journals – but I don’t want to…I’m not ready to look at the things I wrote that year. I will, and soon, just not yet.
Funny how the time that I’m drawn to prayer over the coming year’s word seems to always be in September. And this year is no different. September of 2020, 6 months after we began lockdowns, virus mitigation. Six months after we became Zoom experts, defacto homeschool families and experts at hunting down toilet paper, that is when I began praying for my 2021 Word of the Year.
Before I share that with you I want to share my growth personally in 2020. This year the racial tensions gutted me. I found myself so moved to do something, to fight, to advocate, I could not even find the words for all that I was feeling. I found myself crying more often than not, and I read more books about racism and history than I ever imagined I would. Add to this the division on our country over this issue and the virus mitigation issues and I became enraged. Now, when I get angry, I get SUPER passive aggressive. My social media became a fury of thinly veiled insults. After being called on the carpet and held accountable, I took a step back and evaluated why I felt I needed to write the things I was writing, or share the things I was sharing? Was shame going to change anyone’s mind? No. Was arguing going to get my point across? No. I came to see that I had to allow myself to be changed and step into the areas that I was being called to step into and allow others to do/or not do what they were being called to.
This found me in a racial conversations small group that was the BEST thing to happen to my heart in 2020. It was there that I began to see the word that God was leading me to for 2021.
Are you ready?
My Word of the Year for 2021 is REFLECT.
The verse that I keep being led to for this word is 2 Corinthians 3:18. The Passion Translation reads:
“We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
I want to reflect His light. I want my heart, my life, my actions to shine like the face of Moses after being in the clefts of the rock even as God simply passed by and who had to cover his face with a veil to keep the Israelites from being overcome from the remaining radiance on his face.
I want to reflect grace and gentleness to those who don’t believe the same as I do. The other verse I have been drawn to that speaks to this is Philippians 4:5 “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”
I want the change that has begun in my life to be reflected outward. I know this isn’t going to be easy – I don’t anticipate that the world is going to be much different in vitriol in 2021 than it was in 2020. People can be hard and hurtful….and I know I will want to act in my flesh. But the change must first start with me. If I choose to live in reflection of God’s love and grace towards me, perhaps it will be the catalyst for change in others? My motivation for treating others with grace and gentleness is that I believe God is near and I want to reflect His spirit of gentleness towards those I love and serve. He is consistently gentle with me; may this word remind me to turn to Him and to reflect a gentle spirit in my everyday life.
So, that’s it. My 2021 word of the year and how I get to those words.
As to the other things I asked about earlier, let me give you some more answers to those?
No, I don’t set goals, I write intentions. Goals hold potential for poor self-talk with me if I “fail” at achieving them. SO, I consider intentions like mapping my course and establishing good patterns.
Yes, my Christmas décor is still up. I never take it down until at least January 6th (Epiphany). To be honest, we have 2 décor trees up this year, and I may just take the Christmas flowers out of them and add Valentine’s décor and they may stay up until March. Because I can…that’s why!
Yes, I do eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s.
No, I don’t stay up until midnight, I’m in bed before 9pm every year.
Yes, I start every year with a plan for more physical activity and better eating habits. Let’s see if I can stick with it this year!
What ever traditions you begin your new year with, I pray that they are sweet. I pray that each person listening knows that they are deeply loved and fully known by the God who created you.
Until next time, go out and find a creative way to make someone smile.
Photo by Chris Stenger on Unsplash
