Quiet

My word.  The word that I plan to absorb and cultivate better habits.

This will be my 11th year picking just one word to be my New Year's Resolution.  Ponder it.  Pray about it.  Feel it and grow it within me.

2009 - compassion
2010 - yearn
2011 - tomorrow
2012 - BeLoved
2013 - abundance
2014 - be still
2015 - nourish
2016 - slow
2017 - restore
2018 - meaningful

This year's word came after a very hard, but so deeply meaningful year.  A year that brought a heartache that I buried years ago back to the surface - in some ways very literal.  In other ways, just painful as I watched my second daughter lose a baby.  Two of my daughters now know this.  A pain and grief that I knew and had never wished upon anyone.  My mama's heart aching, but couldn't take away the pain.  But, empathy.  Empathy is the gift of knowing the experience that empowers you to feel beside others.   It brought full meaning to the surface of reliving pieces of grief.  Yes, a meaningFULL year.

Pondering this year's word, my thoughts were cluttered with noise - not a tangible noise that one can turn down, but just a disruption, but a heart and mindset.

A mindset that has been brewing back since March 25th, 2016, when I first wrote Live Quietly on my other blog and I transferred it here and made it the featured post of this blog.   Unknown to me at the time, would I feel I needed to read it over and over again myself.  Quiet strangely spoke loud in my quest for slow.  Quiet spoke loud to my heart.   Quiet was interwoven and laced in the quest for slow.

This verse:

 

as•pire

/əˈspī(ə)r/

verb

1. direct one's hopes or ambitions toward achieving something

Direct my hopes to live quietly.

  
I needed quiet to slow my thoughts.  I needed quiet to help me listen.  I needed quiet moments to grow my faith.  I needed to be intentional for quiet time.   And thus, my word of the year