2017 is winding down, coming to its end – an end that has reached us much faster than I anticipated. This year truly has flown by – each passing year seems to go a bit faster.
With 2018 right around the corner, I am thinking about the changes I want to make in my life, how to be better next year than I have been this year, and of course, trying to plan a resolution (or ten). (I don’t really recommend ten resolutions, it’s hard enough to keep up with one.)
I pick a word each year to develop a character trait in my life. As 2016 was coming to a close and I was pondering much like I am now, I couldn’t decide on a word. I kept thinking of words that I wanted to assign to other people (namely my husband) but I couldn’t think of the “right” word for me. I was almost going to just settle on one – likely something that started with an “a” to begin an alphabetical character journey.
Despite the wax build up in my ears and my hard head, God kept nudging me, urging me to toward a word. When I finally grasped it, and subsequently, several verses that really made it ring true, I was overjoyed.
That word holds a deeper, richer meaning at the close of 2017 than it did at the beginning. I did not think I know the extent to which I would learn to lean on Him to keep me rooted through so many trials. I didn’t know how many times it would feel like everything was unraveling and one of the verses He gave me would be in front of me again, reminding me to be steadfast.
Don’t quit.
Don’t cower.
Don’t quit.
Don’t cower.
Don’t quit.
Don’t cower.
Over, and over, and over. God knew what this year would bring and He knew I would need to be focused on Him, and determined to be steadfast. I would need real staying power in parenting, marriage, business. I didn’t apply it to writing the way I could have, but I saw time and again how God was using my word to shape me.
My writing is, yet again, my focus as a year comes to an end. It seems it often is – because I know I will deeply regret having not written if I find myself closing the book that is my life, as opposed to the chapter that is 2017. (Not that I see that book closing anytime soon.)
I’ve started asking what my word should be for 2018. I think it needs to be something like consistent. Something to follow-up staying the course, but with some action to it – doing something. Not procrastinating.
Is there a word for not procrastinating?
Regina Walker 