Hi friends and happy Wednesday!
I don’t know about you, but I can’t believe Christmas is over. It went so fast. Like a flash. Isn’t it funny how time can do that? It can feel like it’s speeding up or slowing down. Things feel slow as molasses when we’re in the waiting room. And, other times, it feels like we blink, and the day is over. Not just the day, but the year. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we’re just days away from 2023 wrapping up. The end of the year is always a thoughtful time for me. I was looking back at all the ups and downs and how God carried me through both. All the sweet, precious time with loved ones that’s such a gift, and the hard, often painful times that I know only God could get me through. 2023 was a year of both, but I look back and am beyond grateful for God’s provision.
I also look forward. Forward to a new year. A blank slate, if you will. It’s the time that many of us make goals for the year. Many of us, myself included, buy planners (don’t get my hubby started on how many attempts I’ve made to get organized with just the “right” planner—as if the right planner will suddenly make my chaotic brain organized, but I don’t give up).
We buy goal planners, specifically. My favorite is Cultivates What Matters One-Year Powersheets or Susan May Warren’s My Brilliant Writing Planner. Yes, I own both. Just don’t tell my hubby! Both explore didn’t areas of goals for me—my personal life and my writing life. Writing has a life of its own. But I digress. Making goals is something I do every year and at the end of the year, I look back to see how many I met and often it’s not many. My plans to get in shape, keep my house perfectly tidy, and turn my book in early sometimes happen and sometimes don’t. But I look at my goals and what I’m focused on and this year in particular it hit me. Of all the goals I make, how many center on Christ? Walking a deeper, more dependent walk with Him, spending more time in His Word, cultivating the gift of writing He’s given me, and treating others with the love He calls us to for our neighbors. I sat back and looked at my goals for 2023 and, I’m being brutally transparent here, not one of them involved my walk with or relationship with Christ, I’m very sorry to say. How could I hope for a year of goals and not one of them involving my life with my Savior? The Author of my life. So, this year’s goals are going to look different.
I’ve always admired those who choose a word for the year. I know fellow authors and friends who do. Who often buys a necklace with their word-of-the-year on it, I’ve always thought—how do you focus your entire year on just one word? Maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s part of their list of goals for the year. But I wonder…what if it’s the only goal for the year? What if I chose one word to focus on for the whole year and, if so, what would that be? This year, after prayer, my word is deliverance.
I know, it’s probably an odd word for the year. But the Lord brought it to mind and I looked up this verse: “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” Why deliverance? Deliverance from what? Myself, most likely. Again, full transparency here, but I think deliverance from relying or attempting to rely on my strength, deliverance from lack of focus—I’m always doing a million things at once so maybe this year God wants me to still and focus on Him and on the gifts He’s blessed me with. This year it’s hard not to make other goals. I’m dying to use my Powersheets and list a bevy of goals, but I’ll trust that one word is enough.
Question for you:
What are some of your goals for the year? If you could pick one word to focus on, what would it be?
As always, thanks for joining me this week
Best,
Dani
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I love your post so much, Dani.
First, I love my paper planner. I’m into decorative planning and use a Happy Planner. I still have my planners going all the way back to the 1980s when I got my first Franklin Planner. Electronic planning entered my life when I got my first Mac in 2006, which is easier and faster to search. But I still like that paper planner on my desk.
Second, I’ve been asking God for a word (and verse or verses) of the year for close to 20 years. I have found it to be a wonderful spiritual discipline. The word God gives me has always had a strong impact on my life, carrying me through difficult times, teaching me something new, providing comfort or strength. My word in 2005 was Endurance. My word for 2024 is Shelter. I look forward to a year of sheltering beneath the shadow of El Shaddai’s wings throughout the year.
Blessings on your new year.
Robin
Thanks so much for sharing, Robin. I really appreciate it and I love that you have had such a strong impact on your life from the words God has chosen from you.
The word that comes to mind is peace. I just want peace. I’m not sure if that will be my word for 2024 or not but that’s the one that keeps coming to mind. I am with you on planners. I bought The Brilliant Writing one again this year and hopefully I will actually use it. I hate spending the money and then not using it which happens too often with me.
That happens with me far too often. I buy them, I get all excited and start and within a matter of weeks, I’m not using it and am disorganized again. My writing related goal the year is consistency. So consistency using my planner. That’s what I’m hoping for. And, peace is a wonderful word.
Love your word for the year. We need deliverance from so many things. Will keep that in mind for the year. Thanks!
You’re very welcome. So glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks so much for stopping by.
I am very much a planner-not-planner. I have lots of kids, so a lot of my life is planned by their needs, and what they don’t fill is filled with the online craft store I own and run all by myself, but I like to live in the “made-up” world of not planning. Free wheeling. 🙂 Yet, if you ask my husband and kids, I always have things planned out. I just like to pretend I live schedule free.
If I had to pick a word, I would pick “relationship” I am always convicted that I need to build, grow, and work on my relationship with God.