{"id":4286,"date":"2020-01-01T18:31:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T18:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/?p=4286"},"modified":"2020-01-01T18:31:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T18:31:57","slug":"a-word-for-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/01\/a-word-for-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"A Word for 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Happy New Year!<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4287 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/2020.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1148\" height=\"861\" \/>My One Word<\/h3>\n<p>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&#8217;m trying! In fact, one year my word was <strong>Listen<\/strong>. If you search this blog for &#8220;My One Word,&#8221; you&#8217;ll find most of my previous words (although not last year&#8217;s. I apparently didn&#8217;t blog about that one.)<\/p>\n<h3>This Year&#8217;s Word<\/h3>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4289 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/grace-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1148\" height=\"765\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My word for 2020 is <strong>Grace<\/strong>. Like the years I chose <strong>Love<\/strong>, and <strong>Peace<\/strong>, this one was easy to hear spoken at church and to discover in the Bible. <strong>Grace<\/strong> is an essential element of Christianity, so of course it&#8217;s important and I need to study it. So I will.<\/p>\n<p>The Sunday after Christmas, I heard this in church:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.~Luke 2:40 NIV<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The grace of God was on Jesus, so of course, I want that too!<\/p>\n<p>Usually I go into the year with a preconceived notion of what that word is going to teach me. My word for 2019 was <strong>Discover<\/strong>. I imagined all the wonderful things I&#8217;d learn and the great adventures I&#8217;d take in 2019. I thought it would be fun and thrilling. <strong>Discover<\/strong> 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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>So, I&#8217;m thinking <strong>Grace<\/strong> will teach me that even though I might fail, even though I might not get things done I think I should, God spreads His <strong>Grace<\/strong> over me. But what will <strong>Grace<\/strong> really mean to me in 2020? We shall see!<\/p>\n<h3><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4290 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Begin.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1148\" height=\"765\" \/>A New Start<\/h3>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that how most people see the new year? A chance to start all over again if we didn&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I&#8217;ve read James Joyce&#8217;s <strong><em>Ulysses<\/em><\/strong> (ugh! I&#8217;ll never get those hours back again!) I didn&#8217;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 href=\"https:\/\/www.penguinrandomhouse.com\/books\/88933\/ulysses-by-james-joyce\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-4296 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/9780679455134-179x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"179\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<h3>Did you choose a word for 2020? Please comment.<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;m trying! In fact, one year my word was&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[201,141,202,180],"class_list":["post-4286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cindy-thomson","tag-grace","tag-happy-new-year","tag-james-joyce","tag-my-one-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyswriting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}