Word of the Year

I have a friend who chooses a word for every year. She puts a good amount of time into thinking and praying about it, and then she comes up with a great word to capture her anticipation of the year ahead. I thought this was such a good idea that I tried it myself last year.

Turns out, I'm not as good at it as my friend is. All I came up with was "BIG." Not very inspiring or descriptive. But at the end of last year, "big" was how everything in my life felt. I was asking God for some big things. We were also walking alongside our son in making his college decision, which felt very big. So "big" is where I landed, although it didn't really take. It sort of passed right out of my mind shortly after I chose it. As much as I love words, maybe this whole word-for-the-year thing wasn't for me.

Imagine my surprise when three-fourths of the way through the year, God gave me His own word. One day as I was praying, it just kept tumbling out of my mouth. Every day, it kept coming back. I couldn't get it out of my mind. STEADFAST. That was His word for me. (An improvement over "big," yes?)

It's a word I desperately needed. More like a whole mentality I needed. I have always been pretty even-keeled. I'm not given to mood swings or frequent outbursts of emotion. But this fall, I found myself all over the place, always with regard to my kids. Two of them had a really rough fall, and I was right in it with them. In fact, I have that magical mothering power to take what my kids are feeling and amp it up a hundred percent before owning it for myself. The picture I had in my mind was of my hands clenched to the back seat of a rollercoaster while my legs flew all helter-skelter out behind me, wind whipping me all over the place as I held on for dear life.

Into this picture, God spoke the word "steadfast." It didn't happen overnight, but the rollercoaster stopped taking the dips at 90 MPH, my legs found their footing, and my racing heart became, well, steadfast. I was reminded that my kids' experiences and emotions belong to them. I don't need to take them on myself. I've already done sixth grade. I've been through high school and college. I don't need to relive the emotion of those turbulent years. I need to be an adult. (I get to be an adult.) I get to be the one who's not tossed around by a bad day at school. I'm the one who gets to be steadfast, anchored in maturity and truth and the wisdom that comes from decades of walking with Christ.

Like David fleeing from Saul, I can say, "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast!" (Psalm 57:7). And I can live like I believe it. It's amazing how one word can change your whole perspective. Over the past several weeks, especially, as I've struggled with Braden being so far away from us at Thanksgiving, as I've wrestled through ugly feelings of jealousy toward my friends whose kids are coming home, I've noticed that my anxious heart has become steadfast. The disappointment and jealousy just sort of disappeared. My desire to run and hide until Thanksgiving was long gone went away, too. Now I'm actually looking forward to Thursday, with genuine thanksgiving.

God has been writing steadfast love and faithfulness on the tablet of my heart (Proverbs 3:3). Isn't that a far better picture than the frantic woman on the crazy train?

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.