What’s Your Word for 2016?

Preparation | Obedience | Boldness

In 2014, my word for the year was preparation. 

I had heard of people choosing a word to represent what they want to focus on in the year to come, but I had never quite gotten to it myself.

Sitting in the sunroom of a restaurant in North Carolina with other volunteer leaders from the Children’s Ministry of my church, we were to go around and share a word we felt described the season we were entering. My favorite type of activity.*

*For those who don’t know me personally, that last sentence is dripping with sarcasm. Like soggy, sopping wet. I hate sharing anything personal in front of groups of people I don’t know. And God is making me a public speaker. Oh, the irony.

I nervously shared that the only word I could think of was preparation.

I didn’t quite understand why I felt so strongly about that word, since about six months prior my four-year on-and-off relationship had permanently been switched off, and I was coming up on the one-year mark of my new job, so I was a little unsure about what I should be preparing for and how to go about it.

I laugh now at my naivety as I reflect on all that has happened in the past two years.

The parts of my journey that I have shared with the public in accepting the call to missions are documented on my personal blog, so you can read more about what that season of preparation held there.

2014 held a two-week mission trip to India, more conversations with missionaries and missionaries-to-be than I can count, celebrations, separations, reconciliations and the application to, acceptance in, and training with my missions organization.

I wonder what I could have possibly been preparing for 🙂

As my calling became more apparent and my focus more defined, I quickly realized my word for 2015 would be obedience.

This one was tough. Even in the midst of unknowns, preparation brings an excitement that obedience doesn’t always level up to.

Obedience is hard. I don’t have to tell you that. And I’ve written enough posts about it that I don’t need to travel down that road today.

But I can’t even find the words to describe how sweet the blessings have been when I’ve chosen to obey, even when — especially when — things didn’t make a lick of sense. They didn’t always show up quickly and they were rarely what I would have asked for, but they have been better than I could have dreamed and because of what has happened thus far, I have the faith to continue obeying.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks of 2015 thinking about and praying for direction for a word for 2016, and the word that continued to come to mind was BOLD.

If I’m completely honest, I continued praying, not for confirmation, but moreso because I was hoping there would be another word out there God would rather assign.

There is a lot of responsibility that comes with boldness.

I have hurt people before with my boldness. I have done and said a lot of wrong things, sometimes the right things at the wrong times, and more often than I’d like to admit, the right things in the wrong ways.

But God has been stirring something inside of me for the past few months and I am recognizing that He is trying to pull out a tenacity in my spirit that I have been stifling for years.

My prayer is that in this year I will establish a graceful boldness, not abrasive, yet unapologetic. That I will speak truth with authority and that fear will have no place in my thoughts, actions, or speech because of the One from whom that authority has been given. That I will step even more out of my comfort zones and act in tandem with what I have been taught, knowing that the power that rose Christ from the dead is the same power that lives in me.

I am nervous and excited and anxious with expectancy.

Though I fell short many times in both areas, I have seen what He did with my preparation and I have seen what He did with my obedience.

I cannot wait to see how God moves with my boldness.

If you haven’t yet come up with a word for 2016, I invite you to pray about it. I am fully convinced that God will blow you away.

If you already have your word, feel free to share it to encourage others!

So if the old way, which has been replaced, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new, which remains forever! Since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold. (2 Corinthians 3:11-12)