I love words! Words speak to me from my walls as my plaques gently remind me: Simplify…Live, Laugh, Love… I Am Blessed…A.S.A.P Always Stop & Pray…We dance in this kitchen…Feed Them & They Will Come…Be Still and Know That I Am God.
When I first heard a writer suggest to “Choose ONE word for the whole year,” I thought it very strange. Me and just one word? I would have to admit that my annual New Year’s resolutions usually lay there dead by March until they were revived the next January when I took another go at the same thing..
So in 2014 I tried picking just ONE word after I was challenged reading “My One Word” by Mike Ashcraft. I was surprised how one word could shape my thinking and transform and guideme. So each January after that, I began asking God to help me pick one focus word on what He wants to change in me for the year.
Year after year I looked forward landing on my one word. Year after year just one word would impact me and give me direction. I didn’t even have to go back to my journals and look up my words from the past few years; they had stuck with me.
In 2020 BunnySlippers was my one word, a fitting word as we navigated the unknown and resulting isolation of the COVID pandemic. I even bought some bunny slippers to flop around in. This funny word calmed my heart as I learned to settle down and be okay with being in my slippers for days at a stretch, to relax and take time to know God more intimately. And He continued working His miracles while I was at home, like helping me lose 16 pounds instead of gaining like many experienced.
In 2021 Bright ushered in a year of getting even healthier & getting out and re-engaging with others.
In 2022 Reframe turned out to be my word, though I didn’t know it as I was going through the year. In January I wasn’t thinking about my one word as we focused on bringing in the New Year in sunny Texas marrying our granddaughter Kassidy and Zack. Don and I came back to Illinois with colds we fought for weeks. February came too quickly, as my lifetime partner, my love for over 60 years, left this earth for his new home with Jesus. The year slipped by, as considering my one word was drowned out by all the changes learning to navigate life without my honey. It is only by looking back that I know my one word. God was constantly teaching me to reframe life and focus on seeing things through His lens instead of fixating on the vortex of change swirling around me. God was continuing to transform me.
In 2023 I began thinking about one word. I really did. On January 1, I even went to the bookshelf and set out My One Word book to read. Then I got busy and ignored it. In mid-January my friend Meredith Shobe texted, “Would you share 10 minutes on your word for 2023 on my podcast?” (Link to this “Word Pictures with Meredith” podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1AoLopQmgJC5rSQMHxDwFk?si=PFFMvfTbTfOP9NgvgKLNTA
I was typing my reply: “I’d love to share, but I don’t really have a word …” when God popped this thought into my head: “Oh yes you do. You wrote it down last night.”
I’m thinking, “What? What word did I write down?” and then I moaned, “Oh Noooooo. That’s my word for the year? No. I don’t want that word. I don’t even LIKE that word. Not THAT word!” I wrestled with God back and forth for some time as I pondered this particular word. But it wouldn’t go away. It lingered, stood strong and kept hanging there in the air.
In 2023 disCOMFORT has become my one word. Yes, disCOMFORT — so would you like to have that word? I didn’t think so. However, soon I began to embrace it as I understood some of the reasons why He had picked that word for me. I have always loved comfort way too much. Comfort and I go way back. My first memory of loving comfort is from elementary school and my loving momma comforting me with sweets– fresh hot chocolate chip cookies and a glass of cold milk nightly when I got off the school bus.
Now is the time…
Now is the time to break up with comfort. For several years I have been trying to get trim and healthier and to overcome worshipping the idol of comfort food. Now I sensed God showing me that the deep root of my issue has not been the love of food. The root has been the love of comfort.
Now is the time to address this, to get set free from this life-long hindrance to a healthy bold vibrant life.
Now is the time to also stop using the excuse that if something is uncomfortable, that is reason enough to not obey what I sense God is saying to do, a reason not to risk hard things. I so want to learn to instantly obey Him and not dilly-dally when it isn’t comfortable to do so (like putting off posting regular GodHug blogs online.)
Now is the time to finally dis comfort , to put-down comfort, as my go-to for making daily decisions. It is time to quit going to easy worldly comforts for a short hit of pleasure and insted go to the Comforter, the Spirit of God, who is the only source of long-lasting comfort.
“But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.” — Jesus John 14:26-27 ASV
I realize that God wants me to have comfort. He isn’t saying I can’t be comfortable. He has faithfully given me so much comfort over the years, surprising me even in the messy middle of life. This past year with Don gone, the Comforter, the Spirit, has been the source of my amazing peace. God wants me to have comfort, but not to the point something becomes more important than Him, an idol I go to. He wants to be my go-to, the center of my life, my Comforter.
Of course, this next verse makes it very clear that everything this year won’t always be comfortable. Why? I am a human and I live on earth, so I will be facing troubles. Read this twice and let it soak in…
“ I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” — Jesus John 16:33 NLT (emphasis mine)
I’m aware that I’m just beginning the deep treasurers of disCOMFORT, and I’ll be learning a lot more as the year unfolds. Even so, I am looking forward to this year of learning to dis worldly comforts and lean into and walk closer with my faithful Comforter, the Spirit of God. How about you?
Food for Thought:
- What or who do you tend to go to in the world for comfort? Do you feel it Is this healthy or not?
- Can you share a time in your life when the Comforter brought peace right in the middle of tough circumstances?
- Do you desire to dis the comforts the world dangles out there and embrace more of the Comforter?
- What is a small step you could take right now to make that switch?