Why I Didn't Pick "One Little Word" For the New Year (But What I'm Doing Instead)

A year is a long time. A year ago, I was still in the ignorance-is-bliss stage of expectant motherhood, with three months to go before I was to give birth to Claire. A lot can happen in a year.

And so, when I read about people selecting and choosing a single word to hang as a banner over the coming year, at first I find it beautiful, the idealism of it all. But then I remember how long a year is, and I find it overwhelming. For me, right now in this season that is ever changing, it seems too much. Committing to living out a single word for an entire year just seems too much, no matter how beautiful it seems right now, with the rush of the holidays just boxed up and a calendar full of pages spread before us.

No, right now, I find I must live in seasons. While committing to a whole year seems daunting, committing to a lesson for a single season seems right for me, whether that season lasts a week, a month or a decade.

So while others are picking and plucking a single word to hang over this coming year, I am settling on a single idea to hang over this current season of mine. And right now, for me, it is this: Learning to hold things loosely.

(Written on paper, it sounds idealistic, too, doesn't it?)

And yet, for me, it feels right. Right now I feel the Lord pulling me to loosen my grip on things: money, possessions, frugality, circumstances, stress, people's reactions, emotions.

They are the things I must stop trying to control, stop trying to cling to. And so, I must learn to hold them loosely. I must learn how to wield them without letting them turn and end up wielding me instead.

Already, only days into the new year and this new lesson of mine, I can feel the Lord working, the Lord helping me let go of some of these things that would have previously riled me up and rang emotion out of me and given me nothing but stress.

It is not one single word for a single year, but it is what the Lord is calling me to right now. It is the banner that he is lifting over this season of mine. And that is beautiful.

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