Every year bloggers choose either one word or 3 words to focus on during the year. Normally, these posts are published on New Year’s Day. However, I am running very late with publishing my post.
2015
Last year my one word was – Thrive! Ever since Joe passed I had been using the words “muddle”, “okay” and “survive.” Well those are mediocre words, so no wonder my life was mediocre. I was determined to make 2015 different by being intentional, simplifying, and trusting.
It was a different year. I was starting to thrive. I was one paycheck away from being able to bank a sizeable amount every other week when – bam! I was “rear-ended” in multiple ways by multiple people.
After that – 2015 went into the sewer.
2016
That is why going into 2016 I felt mentally beat up.
While pondering if I was even going to choose a word this year, I decided on what books I wanted to read in January which lead me to 4 words – Thank, Joy, Savor and Unmask. I decided any one of them would work or I could choose to use multiple words for the year.
The Word That Would Not Go Away
But there was another word that kept coming up in my mind –
Gentle
While the other 4 words would work, Gentle seemed to fit better in my life because I felt broken.
Gentle is how I:
- need to be treated
- need to treat the world
Now me treating the world gently is something I have control over.
However, I have no control over whether or not the world will be gentle with me. All I can do is to be gentle with the world and hope and pray God sees to it that the world reciprocates.
I will claim this verse and add it to my Draw the Circle challenge.
Holy Spirit, work Romans 15:13 into my life so I will treat the world gently and it will treat me gently in return.
In Jesus name I pray
Amen
This ought to be an interesting year.
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Romans 15:13
ESV
Michele Kearns is the founder and HUG© (Hope Unites Globally) Award-Winner of JoyReturns. She encourages widows and educates society about grief and life as a widow by sharing her widowhood adventures. A graduate of Kent State University with a degree in communications, she has used her skills in the banking, collections, outdoor products, social media and greeting card industries. Michele is a bookworm, lover of golden retrievers and an amateur photographer.
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