Embrace

This past week has been full and at times overwhelming (if I'm to be truly honest). I'm very thankful I started the year off with  a silent retreat last weekend to prepare (if even barely) for the coming year.  We are now already ten days into a new year as I write these words.  

I love words.  Words help me heal, they help me share, they help me love, they help me process, they help me understand, they help me mourn, they help me believe, they help me have hope, they help.  Words are powerful.  So, for me, to select a single word for the coming year is a greater challenge than creating a long list of wordy resolutions (yes, I know I am wordy and this alone should likely be on a resolution list - hence the silent retreat).  Choosing one word for the year is a practice I've entered in before and this year, with the help of Christine, I was encouraged and confirmed in my word:


...embrace...


So, although only God knows what is to come in 2013, I choose to embrace it (whatever that means or may look like).  This week I have multiple friends facing the loss of loved ones (some with time to say goodbye and some of those friends have lost their loved ones unexpectedly).  I have a precious boy celebrating Honor Roll.  I have new opportunities in ministry.  And, I also have a sink full of dirty dishes, mail to be opened, bills to be paid and a cough that has returned.  I have some new boundaries and exciting new challenges.  The only way to live fully into the coming year is to embrace each of these moments and the many more to come because only God knows the road ahead. 

---

"MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."  -Thomas Merton