One Word Recap & My New Word

If there’s been a year I needed to remember that regardless of my physical dwelling, that the dwelling of my heart and soul is secure, it’s been this past year.

My word for 2013 was DWELL. And it was fitting.

2013 was the year my husband and I sold the house we built in the woods over eleven years ago. We bought the property seventeen years ago, two years into young married life, after searching for the perfect spot to build the home that would welcome family and friends. Not just a place to dwell, but a place to experience life as community – the joys and the sorrows.

And for the last eleven years, we did.

This was the house of my son’s childhood. The house we learned he wouldn’t be an only child any longer when he was six, but would have a baby sister. The house we learned that baby sister came with an extra chromosome. The house with the porch overlooking trees and flowers that became “the meeting place,” where I sat fighting that first battle of fear of what life would be like as a parent of a child with special needs and winning it because He came alongside and dwelled with me.

The house of woods, wildlife and the ridiculously long gravelly drive, which I affectionately called the “road less travelled,” a fitting metaphor for our lives, I thought.

Then this fall, we packed this place up into boxes, drove the long drive one last time and said goodbye.

We moved on to a new old home in town, gutted, added to, and fashioned by my husband.

Our new old house wasn’t completed at moving time, so we moved our boxes in, but took up residence in a hotel for a month. Our time at the house was spent as visitors. Then, just before Christmas, it became home.

Come on in!

We made the choice to move, feeling it was best for our family. A way to simplify. A way to offer more independence to our daughter both for now and the future.

It’s only been a few weeks now and slowly we’re growing into routines, snuggling by the light of the Christmas tree in rooms filled with laughter, making new memories.

There are boxes still unpacked, and it isn’t all clear to me yet – how we do life in this new place. That will come – I know.

What I am sure of is this – regardless of the sticks and mortar surrounding you, your dwelling can be secure. Rock solid, when you place yourself in His hands.

I’m still spinning a bit from the last few months. My daughter was home with me from the end of October through the holiday, due to a situation at her school. And after packing, moving and remodeling with a little one in tow, deciding on anything beyond having a BLT for lunch, seems a bit ambitious.

And that’s okay. He knows. And I think He’s just calling me to rest. I thought maybe that would be my word for 2014. Rest. But now that the chaos has subsided, I think the more appropriate word for my 2014 is LOOK.

Chaos seems to wander in to life quite unexpectedly and more times than I’d like. And I’m realizing that LOOK is quite fitting, a good reminder for all times. And so, it is my word for the year.

LOOK up – Like Peter walking on the waves, looking to Him helps me to keep walking by faith. Focusing on the waves churning underfoot is a sure fire way to be engulfed and sink. Keep my eyes on Him, not on circumstances or difficulties, they pale in comparison.

LOOK for Him in the small things – The rainbow of colors on sunlit icicles hanging outside our kitchen window, the glow of candlelight and the peaceful quiet of snow blanketed hills & lakes.

LOOK for Him in this moment – Knowing He was with me in the last and will be with me in the next. Don’t look to the future, when all He’s calling me to do is to take life one moment at a time, one step at a time. Not to figure out my daughter’s future when she’s only eight and it’s all a mystery. The future is too overwhelming at this moment, but His grace will meet me there when the time comes. Instead, look for Him in the now.

I’d love to hear about your #oneword365. I’m most grateful for community in this journey of life.

Blessings to you in this New Year!

Now I’m off to find a BLT.