2018 Word: Strength
Hello friend,
I wanted to repost what I had written from my old blog since it still holds true and is something worth sharing. This post was written as I reflected on my "word" for 2018; following this one I will re-share my word written for 2020. Enjoy!
I was never one to make and hold New Year’s resolutions. I don’t know if it’s because I know most of the time they don’t last so what’s the point? Or if it’s because I never had motivation in one particular area in life that I wanted to focus on – things just happened in life and I dealt with it as it came time. That may have been part of the problem… looking back, I don’t think I had anything in life that I was extremely passionate about. I lived life as I was told or grew up knowing how to or how I thought I was supposed to. [Don’t get me wrong – I had things I enjoyed doing]
I lived in the moment a lot of times without any sort of forward thinking, goal oriented, long-term driven passions. Living in the moment is not a bad thing, I think we all need this at times; however, I truly believe there needs to be a careful balance of living in the moment while focusing on the future – not too far ahead of us, but a few steps in front. This is difficult though because we tend to become anxious and worry when we think of what’s to come; there is some excitement, a mix of emotions, but speaking for myself I worry too easily about the unknown. If I let my thoughts get carried away and too deep into the future, I mentally and physically break down and struggle sometimes putting myself back together. I am never strong enough in myself to do this. That’s why it’s a life-long balancing act that should be handled carefully and cautiously. Everyone is different in how they handle certain situations throughout life and you need to know who you are and where you stand when negative and positive events hit you expectedly or unexpectedly. How do you handle it? How do you plan to handle it? How does it affect you in the moment and what are the repercussions after? Do situations change you in the moment, temporarily? Or does something resonate inside of you causing you to look forward and make you change how you handle yourself and the situation the next time something similar may happen in life?
2017 was a year of recovery and introspection for me. But now I lift my head up, off of myself, I gaze ahead. For 2018, I thought of making a New Year’s resolution, but I didn’t want to fail at it three months in, so instead I’m choosing to make each year a “theme”. I want 2018 to be centered around one word, to be passionate about this word – my new year’s THEME – I want to grow in so many ways from this word and I want it to bleed into my life in every way possible. I want it to bleed into 2019’s theme, whatever it may be, which will run into 2020, 2021, 2022, etc.. Speaking about looking ahead, I want this year’s word and every year forward to continue to expand upon each other, to make me a stronger person, to change me, move me, and to twine together inside of me a passion so strong that it is unbreakable. Each year’s word will center around one person especially – Jesus Christ. These words are characteristics of God that He has called me to have as well in order to be a reflection of Him. In order to know who I am, I need to know God, His character – He will open my eyes to who I am, my strengths, my weaknesses, my gifts, my hopes, my fears – by dedicating my life to Him and then living each year, one year at a time, one attribute at a time, He will have stitched together an unimaginable, unbreakable soul and person so tightly wound to Him that nothing will shake me from knowing who I AM IN CHRIST.
With all that being said…
~ I am focusing on STRENGTH for 2018 ~
I am not perfect. I am human. I will still fail at times at having strength. I will have moments of weakness. But life is a journey of learning from these failures, from these weak moments and doing my best in having strength and the only way I will do that is through Christ. He doesn’t require perfection from me. He only wants me have my eyes focused on him at all times, when I’m weak and when I’m feeling my strongest. He wants me to know where this strength comes from and give Him the glory of it all.
This whole idea of dedicating each year to a certain attribute didn’t come to me immediately. It took me a month or two into the new year, but everywhere I looked, the theme of STRENGTH was near. I was reminded of it constantly. I needed it immensely at the beginning of the year. God was showing me how much I needed His strength at work, at home, in life! My mom wrote Isaiah 41:10 on my kitchen blackboard at the beginning of the year as an encouragement to me, not knowing how that would effect me. When God wants to teach you something and wants you to learn, He’ll show it to you in His timing for you. He’ll open your eyes to it and you’ll know. I know I need to be aware now and ask Him to show me. I need HIM! I need HIS STRENGTH! So after all that, I wanted to focus on my strength in Him, in various ways in my life. And after that, it just came to me – instead of making resolutions, make a new year’s theme!
ISAIAH 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
EXODUS 15:2: “The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father’s God, and I will exalt Him.”
JOSHUA 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
2 CORINTHIANS 12:9-10: “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.“
With Love,
Jennie