2010 - And My Word For This Year

Here it is January 2, 2010. Already this year is flying by! Several years ago my friend Lynette introduced me to a tradition - asking God for a word for the year. It's been nothing short of amazing. Sometimes I ask and I immediately get a word - like the year 2007 when I had the word "heaven". I remember I was surprised by that word. All year I looked up. It was so cool. I began to see the most amazing things in the clouds. Not exactly like Linus' experience in Peanuts - no elaborate scenes - just glory and what appeared to be angelic presence. It has opened my eyes to so many possibilities.

So this year my word is "TIME". It came to me the other day while I was praying. I love it when you know without a doubt this is it - this is my word. That happened this year. Here's the story.  Earlier this week my aforementioned friend, Lynette, emailed me and asked me to pull a out a rock for her out of my amazing bowl of word rocks.

I went over to the bowl, turned all the rocks over so none of the words showed, closed my eyes, said a prayer and asked God to pick Lynette a rock.  I pulled out "trust".  I called her and told her which rock I had chosen and she said, "I knew you would.  My word this year is 'trust'.  That just confirmed it."  Ok, so that was cool.  I still hadn't told her my word yet.  I don't like to reveal it until January 1st.  (I'm dramatic like that.)  I woke up on New Year's Day to an email from Lynette that went like this, "what is your WORD????  i trust that you will tell me when the time is right.  time??  is it time????"  (Lynette never uses capitals in the right place.)  When I read that I was astounded!  How could she possibly know that?  There are billions of words in the English language!  No possible way she guessed it.  I immediately called her.  She said that just as she was typing the first sentence she felt like God was saying, "Her word is 'time'."  So she went with it.  HOW COOL IS THAT??  That, my friends, (if there are any of you left out there) is confirmation!  


Now I get to watch (ha! no pun intended) and see how God uses this word to reveal more of Himself this year.  I'm literally excited about it!  There are endless possibilities.  All I have to do is keep my eyes and ears and mind open to them and to Him.  2010 is shaping up to be an amazing year.  

"Savoring Time" stock photo

This morning as I was thinking about writing this blog post I was remembering how yesterday at our annual New Year's Day gathering at the Shilcutt's we were all talking about our words and whether or not we'd received one yet.  (This thing is contagious I tell you!)  I bet I told this story 3 or 4 times.  Every time I got to tell it - the wonder of it became more apparent to me.  People want to hear about God - simple stories of His Presence in our lives.  We long for more stories like this.  We long for His touch.  I'm convinced He's doing it all the time and we're too busy to see or hear Him.  God is good.  God does good.  And I'm sure He longs for us as much, probably more than we long for Him.  It's a match made in heaven.