Last year I offered the invitation to my readers to consider a word shimmering for them that might carry them throughout the year. There were 140 beautiful postings and I later created a Wordle from the entries as a celebration of the prayers gathered. I offer the same invitation this year and again some prizes to give away:
In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them. The desert became a place to enter into the refiner’s fire and be stripped down to one’s holy essence. The desert was a threshold place where you emerged different than when you entered.
Many people followed these ammas and abbas, seeking their wisdom and guidance for a meaningful life. One tradition was to ask for a word – this word or phrase would be something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. This practice is connected to lectio divina, where we approach the sacred texts with the same request – “give me a word” we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into.
Last year my word for the year was sovereignty and it ripened in me as the year unfolded leading me to new discoveries about myself. I resisted the word at first, as I didn’t like the sound of it. But I knew in all the internal energy it stirred up that I needed to pay attention. When I allowed my heart to soften, the word began to shimmer in me, rang long and clear like a chime (hint: sometimes the word which creates resistance in us is the one we most need to pay attention to).
This year my word is sanctuary. This past week I had to go to the emergency room while alone in a foreign country because of leg pain and shortness of breath. I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and a blood clot in my leg and admitted to the hospital for two nights of treatment and observation. I am being medically supervised now and will be fine, but the experience was dis-orienting in many ways (in the sense of calling me to a new orientation). I have much to process in the coming weeks, but for now I remember as I lay there in the midst of unknowing, that my thoughts were aligned to home, to my husband, to my friends, to my heart-expanding work, to a longing for the refuge of the familiar, but also a profound sense of sanctuary right in the midst of where I was. The sanctuary in a church is the place where the holy of holies dwells, but we also create sanctuaries for animals needing protection or for persons fleeing persecution. The layers to this word and how it seems to reach out to me prompts me to choose it as my word for the year to see what else it has to reveal to me.
- What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold?
- What word, phrase, or image is shimmering before you right now inviting you to dwell with it until it ripens fully inside of you?
Share your word in the comments below before Monday, January 3rd.
Leave your word for the year ahead in the comments below plus a couple of sentences describing your choice. Please note that I have my comments moderated (meaning I need to manually approve them) so it may not show up immediately, but should within 24 hours.
343 Responses
Yield is the word given to me at an Advent Retreat during Centering Prayer. This word came with the image of Christ, fully God, fully man yet resting yieldingly as a baby on his mothers chest. I experienced the sensation of the Holy Spirit like a mother’s hand on the back of her sleeping baby, holding ,me snuggly , safely to Christ’s chest– holding me as I as yielded the weight of my body and cares in rest on Him.
I had just come from holding my 4 month old grandson who had fallen asleep on me the day before. The feeling of his trusting little body resting so peacefully with his even slow breaths coming in such an unhurried rhythm on the chest of this -grammie- who hadn’t held him for two and a half months began to draw me to what the Holy Spirit would be teaching me about “Yielding”.
Yielding my desires of knowing Him and His calling, my “doing” – activities. my breathing rhythms, my emotions, my hurriedness, myself securities yielding all to the one who was and is and has never changed in His desires for me to be with Him, resting yieldingly in all aspects of my being to the one who holds me securely– Yielding to Him
My word is security. The past two years have been a time of great change and uncertainty in my life. It has also been a time of seeking and trusting in God in profound ways, when the circumstances of life are in flux and there is no security to be found in people or surroundings. When all else is stripped away, there is God.
This was nice to ponder, because I have realized in recent that ‘my word’ is trust. My life, in recent, has been like one of those group trust demonstrations where one person falls and everyone catches him or her. I just stand there, however, not trusting – not trusting loved ones, not trusting friends, and often not trusting myself and the Divine. So I feel like I am being moved to examine this – to move closer to trust in all it’s subtleness. So examination and cultivation of trust – that is my beautiful mystery.
My word is equanimity–exploring the depth of meaning that ” life is.”
I do not deserve the hurts and I do not earn the joys. Life is…a gift…given freely to me in all of its joys and hurts.
I believe my word for the coming year is “slave”. I have years of abide, obedience and surrender in my journey of dying to self so I might better live in Him.
Slave is not about what I do, but about who I am, purchased by Christ and wholly His.
The word calling to my spirit is PEACE. The peace for me to follow my path with strength and calm. The peace that allows me to see my work as part of God’s greater whole, which I cannot ever see clearly. Peace for others who have none–a dear one in my life completed suicide this week–so peace for people’s souls when they cannot find it. The peace that enables joy to filter through the cracks. The peace that allows what comes to be… good/God. Peace.
transformation.
My word is PERSPECTIVE. My 17 year old son has had a very trying year having been diagnosed with ADD and depression. Despite having called upon a bevy of professionals, he continues to struggle. I want to have the perspective to allow myself to see the world through his eyes and not to push my own perspective as being the right course of action. Thank you for the opportunity to have a focus word for next year as he finishes high school.
My word is vulnerable.
As I have practiced this prayer of choosing a word I’ve noticed how my life deepens as each year passes. Recent words were: cocoon, emerging, open, flying free, surrender to consciously dying, I choose life and now the word is vulnerable. Each year has been so rich, sometimes painful and challenging and always blessed. I’m excited to see what emerges as I enter my Sabbath the week after Christmas and in the coming year.
Blessings as you heal, dear friend. I will send you Reiki.
My word is surrender. Yesterday at the spiritual care holiday gathering, we all drew a heart out of a velvet bag. A different word was written on each heart. Mine was surrender. I had hoped I would get something like love, hope, or spirit but knew the minute I held the heart and the word surrender was there, that it was my word. I will carry it in my heart this season and next year where I hope it blooms and flourishes, and yes even struggles and tugs my soul into something new.