A Word for 2016 – The Pennington Point

So it’s a whole new year. Clean slate. Ready – set – go!

For me, 2015 will go down in my personal history as one of the hardest years of my life. Years from now when I am in the nursing home and an attendant pushing my wheelchair asks me, “So, tell me about your life.” I will say, “I don’t remember much, but I do know that 2015 was H-E-double-hockey-sticks.”

I am glad to have it behind me and I have high hopes for 2016. Not that there’s any reason to think that except trust in God and believing He knows that I can only take so much.

Then there’s that “Word of the Year” thing people do. Last year I chose the word “trust” and man-oh-man, did I get tested on that. I’m pretty sure I passed, but my grade might be like a D. So this year I wrote down a few words that I thought might make the year a little easier. I thought maybe a word like SLEEP would be good. Or SNACKS.

But then, ya know, I prayed about it and God said no. I had to have a word that actually would challenge me to be more like Christ. Really, these words, it feels a little like He chooses them because I will start to feel drawn to something in particular and slowly it becomes clear. Like those Magic Eye pictures from the 90s where you think you see a kaleidoscope of images but when you change your focus it actually has a crystal clear other picture there.

This one, for example, shows 3D snowflakes and two of the birds float to the front when you look at it with a different focus:

So I changed my focus on my list of word ideas and God gave HUMILITY for 2016. I am really hoping for a gentler lesson than the 2015 experience, but with a word like humility, it could get rough.

I think I am going to order one of those teeny stamped rings with my 2016 word on it. I have a few others already with some favorite words that inspire me. I have one that says “abundance” another “valor” which are my favorite essential oils. I have a “trust” ring for 2015 and a few blank ones. I was, of course, originally going to get my kids’ names on my rings, but with 9 of them it was too many to wear at once and I felt bad thinking I would have to choose which kids to wear each day, so I went with motivational words instead. After all, if I am drawn to be more humble, trusting and brave then I am a better mom with or without their name on my finger. So I will add “humility” to the stack and hope it helps me see where God is leading me this year.

God has been convicting me more and more over the past few months that I need to expand my serving. I would have told you that I already do plenty of that, but since He has been so clear to me that I need to do more then I am following His lead. Plus I need to work on other areas of humility like to listen more and talk less, think more of others and recognize more that I am not always right.

I don’t know where God and I are going with this, but I am bracing myself for the journey. I am not going to force it. I’ll just start small and see where He leads.

Speaking of humility, I’ve been sharing some sweet, humble stories on Facebook all week of acts of kindness and caring. Finding these stories to share is helping me see where I am supposed to shift my perspective. Plus it’s been good for me to see how many selfless things people do for each other. We all need that reminder in the midst of news stories of school shootings and people tearing each other down on the internet.

This one is too long for me to share anywhere else and the image quality is bad, but it’s worth sharing!. Be warned…you may need a tissue….