Word..

I’m here. Are you here too? We are at the end of another year. 2015. It is nighttime here and everyone is in bed except me as I try to sort through the pages of this year. I’m opening the folds and creases, finding the parts that have been torn in a fury and I’m tending to the rough edges, trying to match them up and tape them together so I can see the bigger picture. I’ve looked back at my journals and looked over the blog posts I’ve written this year and I’ve come to the conclusion that it has been quite the year. Not the year I was expecting but..

Last year I was challenged to pick a word for 2015. 

“A word?”, you say.

Yes, a word.

I was just as baffled by it as I have never picked a word for the upcoming year. Look at it this way. If I were to ask you to look back on your 2015 and sum it up into one word, what would that word be? 

Now take that question and flip it so you are putting a word ahead of your year. It can be something you want to see, something you hope to see, something you think God is calling you to. When I answered the question of giving a word to the year that had passed I chose two. Hard Grace. Because it was my first time doing the word thing I decided I could lump a few years together. But then, when I was launched towards choosing a word for 2015.. well, It was smacking me in the face. 

Hope.

My word for 2015 has been hope.

Looking towards 2015 I decided I wanted to focus into a better year and so I chose hope. And it was a better year, not because I chose a magical word to make it so, but I believe if you are mindful of something, it can change how you perceive. 

Throughout the year I was reminded of my word, and so with hope on the agenda, it twisted my gaze, put a different coloured lens in the glasses I see the world with. Any little bit helps I think.. especially for a homesick girl prone to anxiety, negativity and self deprecation. I mean, too many times this year I looked at my boys and thought, “They’re gonna need therapy” and “God, be gracious ‘cause momma’s goin’ crazy”

People often lose things when they move, usually little things, sometimes big things. Sometimes things are damaged beyond repair. Then where do you go from there? When it’s something special, something precious..

I lost my security and my trust was damaged in this move. I tried so hard to trust God and believe the move here was better for all of us but it has been hard, so damn hard. I am still holding onto belief that better will come, but since I can’t see it yet I am still picking up the fragments of my shattered trust. I cling to the bigger picture, the hope, the now and the not yet, the kingdom come. But, in the smaller picture? the pixels..

A pastor from a time ago in my life preached a sermon once that has stuck to me like glue. He talked about our walk with God is like working on a needle point, and we are underneath, poking the needle and thread through the canvas not totally sure what we are doing, hopefully hearing when God says “put it here” and on the other side God is turning it into a masterpiece and beautiful work. But, all we see from our spot is a myriad of threads stretched here there and everywhere. We won’t see the completed work until we are with him on the other side. Frustrating, to say the least, but this is the essence of trust is it not? And it is clearly something I still need to work through.

I love the Lord and I know he loves me and I truly desire to come through this challenge the better for it. And it is my desire to look back on our time here in Terrace (whenever that may happen) and be glad it happened. That I would be thankful for picking up shattered trust, glad that I had to find new security and that maybe, just hopefully my relation to God is more realistic and less idealistic. I can rejoice in that too.

It won’t happen overnight. It will take work, persistence, grace, forgiveness, love and desire.

I will build a monument to the Lord. 2016 will be a monument to his promises. I will dig them out of the riverbed and I will build a monument to him.

rebuild,

I will rebuild.