I know I did not blog much last year, but as plans go, I plan to be more consistent this year.  Last year part of me was angry at the fact that I had to change blogging sites, and relearn the format.  Another was angry at the way it happened and that someone was holding my website hostage and telling me I couldn’t have it back unless I paid them $249.00.  I am such a creature of habit that I wanted this new blog to have all my old blogs here and for everything to look the same and be the same.  So I froze and had a pity party for a while.  I’m over it now, and will move on.  I may, over time, post some of my old blogs here, but my focus will be new material as life lends to the sharing.  So here I am.

Over the past few years, instead of resolutions I have had a word focus for the year.  I know this seems to be the trend these days, but it happened to me before I ever knew it was a trend, and I tend to be anti-trendy anyway.

The first time it happened it was just a verse that kept coming up over and over and over.  Every where I turned: on the wall in a hospital lobby, in the devotion I read, on a random verse I picked out of a jar at a dr appt.  “Be still and know that I AM God.” – Psalm 46:10.  Over and over and over.  Then in June of that year (2009) I found out I had a brain tumor.  Wow!  I had to lean into that verse for the rest of the year.

I don’t remember specific verses or words for 2010 or 2011.  But in 2012 it was focusing on the perfection of God.

2013 was the word PEACE.  We began homeschooling in January of 2011 and now all I felt was chaos all around me.  We knew that that was what God had called us to do, but I felt inadequate for the task at hand.  God kept speaking peace over me all that year.

2014 was GRACE.  We had seen the movie Grace Card and God spent the year having me read and study about His grace.  I’ve always leaned toward legalism, because I can grasp rules/laws and a check list of do’s and don’ts.  BUT God was bent on ruining my way of thinking in favor of grace.  After watching the movie, I instituted a “Grace Card” with my boys.  They get one per week to spend to avoid losing a privilege or gaining a discipline for certain things.  There are however a few things they cannot use a grace card for (i.e., shirking responsibilities, or for something they have been repeatedly warned about).

2015.  I’ve thought and prayed, and really thought God was not going to give me a word for this year, but it came to me yesterday.  DESIRE.  More than just a word, it came in a phrase: “To DESIRE Jesus more than what HE can do for me.”  When that came to me I realized I’ve spent the last few years in selfish mode – “WHAT ABOUT ME!!!” focused on me.  So my constant prayer for this year is going to be “LORD, give me a hunger and a thirst for YOU, that I may desire YOU more than anything YOU can give me or do for me.  Give me a desire to be with YOU, and just be in YOUR presence.  To need to be with YOU and nothing else.”

This song says it all: (copy & paste to listen)

I want this to be able to be said of me.

Give Me Jesus Lyrics