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The start of any new year is, in my opinion, momentous. I know that it is a contrived, man-made division of time, but it still seems to me to have real significance. The drawing of a line under the year gone by and the looking ahead to a clean slate of new possibilities are very appealing concepts.
In the last few weeks, Instagram has been full of reflections and reviews of the year that is gone, as well as resolutions and determinations about the year ahead. Now I’m not very good with resolutions but this year I did verbalise my 3 dreams for 2019; ‘dream’ seems like a much more acceptable and unpressured word rather than the word ‘goal’, which I really don’t feel ready to commit to.
One New Year activity that I’ve never been aware of before, possibly only because I’m new to IG, is the idea of having a word for the incoming year. This appeals to me because I’ve lived long enough to know that life rarely goes to plan and so the plans that we make and the goals that we set need to be at least reasonably fluid. In fact, I like the term ‘organic’ for this level of flexibility as it beautifully encapsulates the way an organic plan is almost sentient. People’s chosen words for 2019 on IG have been fascinating to me; @ray_dodd has chosen the word ‘breathe’ which is a great word for me to remember (my pilates teacher can testify to this!) but if you do a search for #wordoftheyear2019 on IG you will find an array of amazing words that have been chosen by people all over the world. Some of the words are challenging, some are affirming, some are gentle reminders for self-care; ‘surrendered’, ‘finally’, ‘intentional’, ‘thrive’ and ‘flourish’ all jump out at me. But none of these are my word. My word for 2019 was chosen before I ever knew that such a thing was a thing.
In October last year (yes last year! how weird is it that that is last year) I had the privilege of doing the @melwiggins (@assemblycommunity) inaugural Movements small group course. Part of the course involved doing a guided meditation from @tarasophiamohr that helps you find the voice of your inner mentor. This voice that, with Tara’s help and Mel’s encouragement, came through loud and clear, distinctly spoke out the word ‘truth’ when asked about a single word that would help me get from where I am now to where I need/want to go. Now, ‘truth’ is a funny old word for some folk, but for me it is grounded and exquisitely bordered because for me truth has a home.
We’re studying The Full Armour of God with our Children’s Church kids this term. All of the adults involved are so sure about this topic being timely that we are actually excited. That’s a nice way to be when you are teaching Children’s Church because, as you might imagine, it is not always easy. Week one of this study was the first half of verse 14 of Ephesians 6; “Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist,” (NIV). Can you see where this is going? Truth for me is not a random, blown by societal norms, trend driven thing. Truth is grounded and exquisitely bordered, scripture defined and Holy Spirit led. I can know truth. And, as we shared with the children yesterday morning, we have a place to go for truth; God’s Word is truth, it is Spirit breathed and we get to have free access to it. The children learned that the Belt of Truth is both a tool belt with all the tools we need to make it through life and a Roman soldier’s belt that protects him and carries his sword so he can fight when he needs to. That’s a truth worth having, a truth worth learning, a truth worth knowing. Sadly, I don’t think I have that belt very securely fastened; I’ve never been very good at memorising scripture and I don’t know my way around my bible well. But this year my best chum Lorna and I have taken on making our way through ‘The Blue Book’ together, in an effort to encourage each other to know our bibles better. I’ll be honest, I don’t manage to do the readings every day but … baby steps and no self-recrimination (please see Decembers blog post).
So back to my word for 2019. Truth. As part of the Movements course we were asked to write 3 affirmations for ourselves that we could refer back to regularly when we were struggling with self-doubt or self-criticism but the idea of affirmations didn’t resonate with me so, in my usual fashion, I veered off in my own direction and wrote 3 truths that I could cling to when the going got tough, as I knew that it would….because it most definitely always does. These are my 3 truths as I move forward;
truths which I will now take forward with me into 2019, for there is no doubt in my mind that TRUTH is my word for this year; truth about who God is and who I am in Christ. My circumstances may change, my plans will probably morph in their own organic way, even my dreams may alter, but TRUTH remains unchanged; grounded and exquisitely bordered by the Word of a God who is Himself unchanging. (Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”)
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