As 2016 winds down there are many things that I'm checking off my list. A new planner, putting away the Christmas decor, vowing to once again be organized and picking my word of the year. I rarely go back and look at my blog entries, to do so usually gives me anxiety when I see bad grammar, typos and thoughts that weren't expressed as I intended. For the last week I have been sure that I knew my WOTY for 2017 - balance. I decided to go back and look at my blog entry for last year and balance was in the running last year as well, along with purpose and enough. I settled on enough and I have been pondering that word all year. When I started the journey of simplification in 2015, then moved on to enough in 2016, I was making good progress yet there is still a little pestering thought in my mind that I can't quite release. I started looking at the word clarity, or just clear, for my WOTY.
When I go through this process I pray about it, I think about areas of my life that I want to work on and how my focus will help me do that. When I chose simplify it was so much more than setting a resolution, I carried that thought and word all through the year. I have not completed that project, but the progress I have made in simplifying and decluttering in the last 2 years is significant. There is still a long way to go!
Choosing a word for 2017 has been very difficult, until about 5 minutes ago. As I was looking through my favorite dictionary and still certain that it was going to be along the lines of balance or enough the word came - SURRENDER.
Surrender: To yield; to give up one's self into the power of another. To resign in favor of another.
I can almost hear it now, especially my husband and other family members "Ha - give up her power to another? No way!" You might say I'm not a 'yielding' type of person! A little strong willed, you might say. So for me focusing on this word for 2017 is about total surrender to God. I say that all the time, but have I really lived it? I pondered enough all of this year, I was on a quest to be satisfied and content with my life as it is. I had good intentions of what I wanted to achieve this year, and some of it I did. Yet I find myself ending the year and not feeling that what I did was enough. I went against the very thing I focused on all year.
When I came across this quote it was the lightbulb "aha" moment I was waiting for:
When I fully surrender to God the 'enough' will come. When I surrender to the plan He has for me things will be in balance. When I prayerfully consider each decision, how to act in each circumstance, and how to react, He may just have a different and better plan than I do.
All of the same things will still be in place as the new year begins. I have a business that I want to flourish and I will do my best to make that happen with honesty, integrity and hard work. I have a ministry job that I feel God has called me to, and I will walk in that direction until He shows me that it is time to turn away. Perhaps I am to be like Paul, a tentmaker, who works hard at a job in order to do the ministry work of God. I have an education path that I have not followed for many years, but now that I have begun (I started a Master of Arts, Biblical Counseling) and have much to do it makes me be in balance. Like many of you I also have huge mountains in front of me for the coming year. Things to conquer, things to overcome and things to let go of. By continually focusing on surrender perhaps those mountains won't seem so large.
Surrender is hard for a person that likes to be in control. Perhaps that is even more reason that I should focus on it! I'm still seeking simplicity, balance and enough....... I now believe all of it will only come through surrendering.
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