Faith

I have said, read, and thought that word enough over the past week that it’s starting to not sound like a word at all. Even so, it’s a word that I will be thinking and focusing on for the foreseeable future because faith is my chosen word of 2019.

This past year I chose to focus on the word GRACE. The intention behind focusing on that word was to learn to lean into the grace I have, and continue to receive from God. But it was also for me to learn to give grace as freely as I get it. I needed to learn to give grace to those around me, mostly my husband and my kids, as we navigated through one trial after the other. But I also needed to learn to give myself grace. I am a perfectionist by nature and I knew as I made my way through the last 2 semesters of my degree, adjusted to new work situations, and learned to live without certain people I would need to allow myself to make mistakes and not accomplish all the tasks on my to-do list. I would have to learn to be OK with not being the “superwoman” everyone constantly assumed I had the capabilities to be.

I can’t say that I did well at my focus word for 2018, but I can say that I managed to be a little less hard on those around me. I took the time to truly listen to what was being said and did my best to support and uplift. When my kids were giving push back on things like chores and school work we stopped and talked things out as best we could to figure out why they were feeling they way they were. Instead of fighting we found ways to make things work that all parties could agree on. And I strove to support my husband through his new endeavors as a teacher and an entrepreneur.  When it came to my personal need for grace well…I did my best to see the big picture but I still struggled to allow myself to not meet my own high expectations.

Focusing on Faith

So that brings us to 2019. This year, as I discussed above,  will be the year of FAITH.  The main verse I will be meditating on is:

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

Over the course of the year I hope to see my faith grow in my relationships with Christ,  and probably the one area that needs the most attention, my faith in myself.

During my year of focusing on grace, I feel like my faith in my relationship with Christ has become stronger than ever. This means that over the course of the next 12 months my goal is to continue to strengthen my relationship and walk with the Lord while having faith that everyone is being placed where they are supposed to be in the time they are supposed to be there.

When it comes to having faith in myself, however, I don’t mean that I am trying to remove my actions from anything and everything that Christ does. On the contrary, I am striving to remember that God has given me gifts and I want to use them for His glory. However, I have a really bad habit of second guessing every single decision I ever make. I am my harshest critic and I often find even the tiniest of flaws as something that can’t be overcome. I want to work this year to overcome that. I want to have faith in the gifts and abilities that God has given men and I want to use those gifts without fear of failure, criticism, or judgement. And if those things, mostly the criticism and judgement, come along I want to be able to take the parts that are valid and put them to use while dismissing all the rest.

So there are my roughly laid out goals for 2019 with my word of the year. So my question for you is: Do you pick a word or phrase to focus on for they year?

If you do what is it? How do you incorporate that into your life over the course of the year? Let me know in the comments.