The Word of the Year

  The beginning of a new year is often a flurry of activity for many people: resolutions and goals, reflecting on the past year, planning out the year ahead. In the past several years I have become aware of a large segment of people having a word of the year - a word that tells what they hope the year will bring, perhaps something to remind them of their focus and goals. It seems to have brought meaning to a lot of people.

  This year I thought it would be neat to have a word and see how it applies to my life throughout the year. Last year I felt God was asking me to TRUST and REST and so I was learning to live in those two words, though it wasn't something I set about working on.

  I don't really know how most people choose a word. I pondered something that would encompass an area I desired to grow in. At first I thought BELOVED would be good so that I could learn to be secure in the identity I have in Christ. I was praying about it in the early hours of the new year as I was trying to fall asleep. The word TRUTH stood out in my mind. It doesn't seem like a typical word - there's no real action to be taken (like COURAGE or BRAVE or UNSTOPPABLE). It seems kind of "eh". So I prayed God, is this what you'd like me to focus on this year? Is this my focus for the year - truth? And I think it is.

  I am quickly warming up to the word TRUTH. I am looking forward to studying the word, mainly in scripture. I know that God's word is truth. Jesus says that he is the truth. I am looking forward to really digging into truth. I know our society likes to say that truth is relative, that there is no absolute truth, that each person makes their own truth. I don't really agree with that so I am excited to set down some truth for me to anchor myself to and have firm footing.

  In addition to studying TRUTH in scripture, I think I am also supposed to work on speaking TRUTH (in love, of course). I have been a people pleaser for years, the underlying fear being rejection. I have been learning that I have an everlasting love in Christ so I do not need to fear being rejected by people. I will always be loved and accepted and valued in Jesus. So I would like to be more true to myself - honest about my thoughts, likes, dislikes, desires. I don't want to temper enthusiasm for fear of the buzz kills out there. I want to be able to express joy and disappointment and anticipation and not worry about what others may think or say.

  I am excited for the year ahead and excited to see what is in store. I know many people also choose a Bible verse for their year. I wonder if it's related to their word. It's probably a hope or reminder as well. I would like to do this, but I think I will wait for one to emerge from my study of truth in scripture.

Do you have a special word or verse for 2017? I'd love to hear what it is!

Confessions of a Recovering People Pleaser

I have struggled for a long time with being a people pleaser. In recent years I have acknowledged this tendency and have tried to care less about what others might think of me.

As a Christ-follower I am loved and accepted unconditionally by God. I do not have to think, speak or perform a certain way to receive love and grace and favor. God loves me as much know as he ever has and ever will. He delights in me and continues to pursue my heart. He knows the depth and breadth of my potential and seeks to help me reach it. He is always for me, always with me, always on my side. What have I done to deserve such lavish love? Nothing. He offers it to me for free through Jesus simply because I am his creation. Who could want or need more than that?

But do I often live as this cherished beloved? No. Often I have striven to achieve the favor and acceptance of my fellow human. It's not hard to see why. People are everywhere, more than ready to offer their thoughts and judgments, reigning favor on whomever pleases them at that moment. It reminds me of the children's story, You Are Special, by Max Lucado. I have read it quite a few times to my daughter and have choked up on more than one occasion at the reminder that I am God's and it doesn't matter what other people think or say about me, what matters - and what is true - is what God says about me.

I just finished Sheila Walsh's book The Longing in Me: How Everything You Crave Leads to the Heart of God. At the end of the first chapter she invited the reader to write the following phrase on a card and stick it somewhere where it can be seen daily in order to become imbedded into the heart:

The God who created me has chosen me as His beautifully loved daughter. Because of that I can take other rejections in stride.

I so desperately want to live that phrase. I want my heart and actions to be focused on living as I have been created, knowing that I will be criticized but that God is always for me and will be my defense and my redeemer.

I recently reviewed my past and remembered some specific instances when I acted in a certain way in order to seek the favor of people even though I didn't necessarily agree or feel confident about it. No one specifically said that they would be disappointed or I would be rejected, but at the moment of decision I felt that choosing wrong would lead to rejection and, at the time, I cared more about acceptance than being true to myself. Perhaps reminding myself of these will help me to be true to myself in the future. Though, true to his nature, God has brought good from many of these experiences.

In the middle of seventh grade I moved to a new state and started in a new middle school (the worst). Someone asked me if I liked 501 jeans. I did not care much about clothing brands then (or now, really) so I assumed it was the cool brand. I said "yes" and then the person said, "That means you like (some boy in the class)." The person then teased me about liking someone I didn't even know. In retrospect, there probably wasn't a right answer to the question that would have spared me being teased. (I realized while writing this that I did start trying to dress more like who I thought were the cool kids over the next few years in hopes of fitting in more.)

In eighth grade homeroom one of the girls called me "Beast" one day when she realized that I had not yet started shaving my legs (I have blond hair so it's not really noticeable). That afternoon I went home and asked my mom to show me how to shave my legs. It wasn't really necessary but I didn't want to experience that rejection and ridicule again if I could help it. I bet it was just a one-time comment that she never thought about again but obviously it affected me as I still remember it 20 years later. I hope these experiences as "the new girl" have helped me to be more compassionate toward other newcomers I meet.

In high school a girl asked me if I believed in God. I did (I had not yet made a profession of faith) but I wasn't sure what she thought about faith and didn't want to be rejected so I said that I wasn't sure. Who knows what would have happened if I had been honest? Perhaps she would have asked me more about God. I doubt she would have shunned me but I still didn't feel completely accepted in my new school. (Feeling bad about not standing up for my belief in God ended up being a catalyst in seeking to learn more about God to determine what I really did believe which led to baptism.)

When I was applying to college I wasn't really sure what I wanted to study. My parents thought I should go into engineering since I was good at math and science and it was a field looking for more women. I moved forward in that major since I wanted to please my parents and didn't have anything strong in mind. In this case, I think it was beneficial to me. It wasn't going against any actual beliefs or thoughts. It may have helped my admissions acceptance having the label of "female engineering student". I eventually discovered that I much preferred psychology and it only required an extra semester of school (and more math and science classes completed than required for my official major, perhaps a negative of not going in undeclared). I also met my future husband in one of my engineering classes my last semester in that major (definitely a major benefit!).



I'm sure there are many more instances when I sought to please others rather than be honest in who I was or what I thought. I'm sure many of you can think of your own experiences. If you are brave enough to share, I'd love to hear them and be reminded that I'm not alone.

Admitting My Need

I have considered myself to be very independent which I thought was a pretty good thing for quite awhile. Parents all seem to want to raise kids who are self-sufficient, productive members of society. But I think you can get to a point where it's almost a source of pride that you don't really need anything from anyone. And also a lie.

My little snow island

Thinking I have gotten to where I am on my own is not true. I may have put in hard work, but I had loving, caring parents who provided for my needs, provided many opportunities and advantages that others may not receive and encouraged me throughout my life. There's no way I'd be where I am without them. And there have been quite a few people who have encouraged me and helped me and shaped who I am as I have grown up. I will never know just how much others have influenced who I have become.

More recently I have been struggling with not feeling like I have many ties to where I'm living. I've lived my whole married life away from my parents and in-laws. My husband and I thought it was a good thing early on because it allowed us to establish our relationship away from the influence of family. We were able to set a solid foundation for our new little family of two. And I do think it was beneficial to help us learn more about one another and ourselves and grow together.

As we've gotten older and added children into the family, the lack of local family support has been noticed and missed. We wish our kids would be able to spend more frequent time with their grandparents and cousins. Selfishly, we wish we had the opportunity for free babysitting.

I was reading Prayer by Richard Foster yesterday and in the chapter it talked about praying to relinquish our self-sufficiency. I realized that I do tend to operate in the mindset of self-sufficiency which isn't necessarily a good thing. I have been used to being away from family (I didn't live close to extended family as a child and have not lived near my parents since I graduated high school) but I sometimes have mistaken my experience as proof of self-sufficiency. Just because I am not able to be near them does not mean I do not need them.

Likewise, just because I do not have something does not mean it is not beneficial and something I might truly need. In an effort to combat my misguided thinking I thought it would help me to acknowledge people and relationships I do need and their benefits. Here we go.

I need my husband. Practically, he is the one who has blessed me with the opportunity to be at home with my kids. He is responsible for all of our basic necessities (thinking about it reminds me of how daunting that may feel at times for him). He does such an excellent job of providing for us. I know I could not fulfill his responsibilities. I need my husband for encouragement and support - in personal endeavors but most especially in parenting. We make a great team and our family would be sorely lacking without him. I need him for physical comfort and affection. I cherish his hugs and kisses. I need him for emotional comfort and support as well. He offers such wise advice and can see things in  situations I cannot at times.

I need my children. They made me a mother. They have caused me to do a lot of personal growing, the most extraordinary being the growing of sacrifice and service. Being responsible of the needs of others rubs on your selfishness and helps it to diminish some. I need their love, smiles, hugs, kisses and belly laughs. I need them so that I can experience life through a child's eyes and perhaps focus once again on what is important rather than all of the distractions of the world. I love seeing them learn and grow in abilities. It is amazing.

I need my family. I need the love and acceptance that is found there. (I know there are people who do not have safe families where they experience these things.) I need my encouragers who are always in my corner, always for me, always proud of me. I need the connection of shared experiences and inside jokes (even the ones that embarrass me).

I need God. He is woven in and through all of these and I know that he is for me and always with me. I love the way he reveals a little more of himself to me as I consistently draw near to him. Just last week I heard afresh the truth that God created me for him. He is constantly surprising me with little reminders of his love though I do not always recognize them. I need God to continue to work in my heart, to remove the selfishness and judgment and lack of love that can be found there. I need him to lavish his grace and forgiveness on me so that I do not despair when I am confronted with my sinfulness. I need Jesus who rescued me from death and darkness and has filled me with hope.

I need friends. Good, close friends. I was thinking today about how my kids could potentially have life-long friends. People they've known since they could walk. Neither my husband and I have friends like that. We moved several times and so our young relationships were severed and new ones created. Not that we haven't been able to establish strong relationships, just that we cannot relate to decades-long friendships (I do have a couple middle school friends I still keep in touch with and that spans nearly twenty years now but nothing earlier than that).

I feel I have struggled most in this area. I am an introvert so I yearn for a few deep relationships. Surface acquaintances do not renew or restore me. I have been blessed through the years to have found some of these relationships. My struggle is that they seem hard to maintain and my track record shows that they are usually severed when someone moves. I have accepted this as a fact of life but it doesn't make it any easier to move on and try again. I also realize some relationships have seasons.

I realized recently that sometimes I don't admit that I desire good friends. I think I pretend that it doesn't bother me that not many people reach out to me so that I won't feel as bad about it. But it is hard to do most of the initiating. Sometimes you want others to reach out so you know the friendship is important to them too. That you matter to them. We all want to be important and valuable. We want others to find us worthy of their time.

In my heart I know that God knows what I need. I know that he can provide me with amazing, honest, deep, vulnerable friendship. And I trust that he will provide me with what I need when I need it. I also think that he wants me to bring my longings to him. He wants me to seek him above people. He created me and knows what is in store for me. I trust him.

Image courtesy of tiramisustudio at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was reminded of his love for me and the truth that he can provide friendships at any time this morning. I have been wrestling with a bit of loneliness the past couple of days. I prayed that I knew God is faithful and has the power to provide. This morning at church a woman told me that she was wanting to focus more on people this year and would like to get together sometime to talk. I knew this was God's confirmation of what I already knew to be true. I don't know whether we will actually set aside time to get together (I'd love to but, you know, life) but I won't be as bummed if there's no follow through because I have confidence in God and his faithfulness.

So that's the truth. I need people and relationships. What about you? Is there anything you try to pretend you don't need simply because you don't have it right now?