Last December when I read Grit and Glory's idea about
OneWord 2011, I was on board!
"No list. No specifics. No goals. Just one word."
The word that I decided to focus on this past year was
ABIDE~
ABIDE: to remain stable and fixed in a state.
Here are just a few highlights from my year and thoughts on ABIDING!
Within 2 weeks of making this my ONEWORD, abiding in Him became my lifeline!! We were suddenly done with ministry at a church where we had invested 11 years of our life..and my husband was without a job. After 20 years of ministry, it was over~
ABIDE would start meaning more to me than I knew on that New Year's Day when God whispered that word to me my ONEword 2011~And I am surprised that I began a grieving/growing/ healing process over the next 12 months. I was taken aback by the fact that this is like a strange death.....and so it began...abide 2011!
ABIDE~ I would flucuate between relief and deep sadness that this season was over. I had longed to be released from this particular situation and here I was grieving over it. **Somewhere along the way I take up running and find I can push my body to do things that I didn't know I could do..run a mile..I find this to be therapuetic, almost life saving to my soul. Some days I do believe it kept me from despair, maybe depression. It was an outlet! As the year ends, I have completed two half marathons, two 5k's and 10k. I had never run more than a mile as of Jan. 2011.**
ABIDE: After months of looking for a job and nothing opening up, we need to leave our home and move in with parents. Thankful for family and for a place to call home, I (we) had never felt so broken, scared, raw and sometimes, hopeless.
ABIDE: In August my husband gets a job out of state and we make the decision for the kids and I to stay so our daughter can finish her senior year. I become a single mom, trying to figure out this new normal, this new identity. I see my kids rise to the occassion & their maturity astounds me. They are my buddies & my joy & we have taken on this newness with some fun, sweet times in our little apartment. We are quite a team, tight and inseparable! BUT we miss dad greatly!
ABIDE: A really cool surprise..my daughter and I have the incredible opportunity to take our first missions trip together to the Dominican Republic. Something I would've NEVER had considered doing without my husband. Doors opened, funds provided and it was more than amazing. A piece of my heart was touched in ways that I had never experienced. Thankful my daughter was apart of that, PRICELESS.
(Life is strange and I still can't believe we are living in this situation.)
While I ABIDE, He is always doing a new work in me, taking me to place I never thought I could go, stripping me of things I would've never thought HE would take, all the while, whispering in me ear..ABIDE! The ABIDING has drawn me on my knees as I no longer just seek HIS hand but I SEEK HIS FACE..HIS FACE ONLY!! He is beautiful beyond description!
I don't think it was mistake that my devotions today, December 30, brought me full circle... The same verse He gave me 12 months ago...wow~(from Jesus Calling)
"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear
grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. John 15:4
Throughout the year I took a few moments to write
about what this word meant to me
and how I was doing in the area of ABIDING.
