Faithfulness: A Year in Review
What’s your word for the new year? What is your intention? What are your goals?
Questions such as these become extremely popular this time of year as we wrap up one calendar year and head into a new one. It’s true. I am one of THOSE people who enjoys picking a word and using it as a mantra of sorts to filter and focus the new year. This past year I selected the word “Faithfulness,” as I felt an intense need to dig in deep in the areas of my life that I felt God was calling me to persevere and be faithful in.
The first of those areas I strove to be more intentionally faithful in this past year was as a mother. My three precious kids aren’t getting any younger, and as they grow, new needs emerge. In the past, I have always made myself fully available to my many students, but often left little reserve for my family. I knew that had to change. This summer we had very little money, but I worked to make the most of a summer at home with them. I made an agreement with my husband that, during this 23-24 school year, I would not stay at school past 4:30 and that I wouldn’t bring work home on the weeknights. I still have to bring essays home over the weekends and must carve out times to leave and work on a Saturday or Sunday, but I feel like I have improved, and I hope each of my kids feels my presence more strongly. Lastly, I pray that God fills in any of the gaps I am leaving. A constant reminder to myself in this field of faithfulness is that I am enough because He is everything.
The second area of faithfulness that I have pursued this year is my writing. I have felt the call of writer on my life since I was a little girl, and I still don’t exactly know what that means, but this year more than ever I have been consistent with a writing habit that has allowed me to cultivate words and stories in a way I never have accomplished before. I finished a novel, have written half of a draft of a second novel, completed a round of edits on the novel and drafted outlines for books two and three to turn the completed novel into a trilogy. I also submitted to two writing contests this year and have shown up as faithfully in the midst of teaching as I could to my zoom meetings with a weekly writers group. I don’t know what my publishing journey will look like, but I do know I have been faithful with the words God has given me this year.
Too often my work has been my everything, and defining myself by my work is a pitfall I have fallen into repeatedly since I was young. I think the biggest thing I have learned in my efforts to be faithful is that God cares more about my heart and my motivation and my cultivation of the time He’s given me, than any product I am producing, awards I am winning, or titles I gain. It is hard for me to sit in that and accept that my worth is not defined by achievements, but that is why I am chose faithfulness, which is about being committed in the present to something regardless of the outcome.
I have not decided yet what word I will pick for 2024, but I feel very much that God has more to teach me in this specific area. I would guess that my word should be something similar. Any ideas? Will you be picking a word for 2024? I would love to hear yours!
