Happy New Year, my friends! I had a lovely Christmas season this year. It seems I was always busy prior to our Christmas Eve dinner with our son's family at our home. After that, it was calm and quiet... just what I needed. There was time for reading, watching Hallmark Christmas movies, and even a few housework projects that could be accomplished a little at a time.
Last year was difficult with many unwanted surprises, health issues, and even a rare possibly life changing trial that took the wind out of my sails for part of the year. I am thankful that we came through them and I can look back and see God's hand at work now when I couldn't at the time.
I have been asking God for a "word" each year for at least a decade now. I stopped making New Year resolutions even before we moved to our present home fourteen years ago. As for goals... there are just a few short term items in my planner now and then.
However, why my "word" for the year is different is in the fact that I ask God to give me the word, as a sign of where He wants me to concentrate in the coming year. One year the word was "focus" and I still have that one written on the chalk board next to my desk... it is still a work in progress.
Every "word" has been fairly serious and highlighted an area in which I needed to do some kind of improvement. Until this year. My "word" came to me in such a way and was such a surprise that I questioned whether I had heard it at all. Really? That's my word for the year?
In my heart, I knew that it was so I'm certainly anticipating what it means in my living and writing and pondering. For that word is...
Celebration!
How it came about was this way... on Christmas Day a favorite Christian TV channel we can get on Direct TV was showing a variety of Christmas musical programs. Each program in its' own way was lovely with the Christ focused music of the Season, twinkle lights, snowy backgrounds, candles lit in the dark, and scenes of Beauty one after another.
I said to myself... and I think it was even out loud... what a celebration this time of year is toward you, Lord! That was when I felt Him tell me my "word" for the year was to be celebration. It just took awhile for me to be assured that I had heard Him correctly.
I mean, really... it is not the kind of "word" I have had in the past. Which not only shows me the vastness of God's thoughts toward us but it added possibility to the new year. How does He intend me to live out this "word" and to write about it? That we will see...
At the same time the "word" Celebration came to mind, my thoughts immediately went to a book I have on my shelves by Luci Swindoll called You Bring the Confetti. I first read this book decades ago and reread it a couple times after that. Luci is well known now for her ministry in the Women of Faith tour but at the time this book came out, she was mostly known as Chuck Swindoll's sister (although it made her laugh that people assumed she was his wife!).
I've dusted off the book and added it to my "to read soon" stack and I think I know why God was reminding me of that particular book. Luci talks a lot about concentrating on the good and the gifts we have in the Lord in spite of the surrounding darkness and trials.
I'm beginning to see why my "word" is Celebration. I think it is going to be an interesting year...
Mentioned in this Blog Post
You Bring the Confetti by Luci Swindoll, info.. here. (Third party)
There are a lot of inexpensive copies of the 1980s hardback book like I own.
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Image: Christmas a few years ago but it is the epitome of Celebration!
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