Happy New Year!
My One Word
As some of you know, I choose a word for each year. I try to do this prayerfully, but I believe God will use whatever I choose to teach me what He wants me to learn, so long as I listen. I’m trying! In fact, one year my word was Listen. If you search this blog for “My One Word,” you’ll find most of my previous words (although not last year’s. I apparently didn’t blog about that one.)
This Year’s Word
My word for 2020 is Grace. Like the years I chose Love, and Peace, this one was easy to hear spoken at church and to discover in the Bible. Grace is an essential element of Christianity, so of course it’s important and I need to study it. So I will.
The Sunday after Christmas, I heard this in church:
And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.~Luke 2:40 NIV
The grace of God was on Jesus, so of course, I want that too!
Usually I go into the year with a preconceived notion of what that word is going to teach me. My word for 2019 was Discover. I imagined all the wonderful things I’d learn and the great adventures I’d take in 2019. I thought it would be fun and thrilling. Discover in 2019 for me ended up going way beyond that. I discovered what life is without my mother, who passed away in June. I discovered a close family member (thanks, Ancestry.com) who I hadn’t known about and who I got to meet in person and still keep in touch with. I discovered secrets kept from me as a result of that discovery. I discovered that I do have enough energy to watch three little grandkids, two of whom were born in 2019! I picked the right word. There was much to discover and thus much to learn about myself.
So, I’m thinking Grace will teach me that even though I might fail, even though I might not get things done I think I should, God spreads His Grace over me. But what will Grace really mean to me in 2020? We shall see!
A New Start
Isn’t that how most people see the new year? A chance to start all over again if we didn’t meet our goals for 2019. Is that how you look at it? Rather than beating ourselves up for what did not achieve, try again.
Even though I’ve read James Joyce’s Ulysses (ugh! I’ll never get those hours back again!) I didn’t remember this quote from one of the characters in the book until I came across it in some rabbit trail Googling I was doing while writing my current novel. Yep, this ended up in said novel.
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
Ah, grace and discover both covered there! I will try to use my mistakes, accept the grace offered when I fail, and discover something worthwhile along the way. How about you?
