Have any of you ever chosen a word for the year? I had heard about this concept about 5 or more years ago, but never chose one for myself until this past year. It is a process in which at some point in time near the beginning of a new year, you select a word that you want to focus on for the upcoming year. It could be an attitude that you want to achieve or an adjective to describe your goal for the upcoming year or something to that effect.
As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I have lived most of my life in survival mode. Just taking the hits that came along and doing my best to tread water and keep my head above water until the storm passed me by. I was achieving that, but just barely at times. However, John 10:10 says that Jesus came to give us abundant life. I certainly wasn’t feeling that! I needed a different attitude and approach to trials in my life.
The Christian singing group ‘Casting Crowns’ has a song entitled “Thrive” which states in the lyrics that “we were made to thrive.” I liken that to the verse just mentioned that Jesus wants us to have an abundant life. Those lyrics gave me the idea to select “Thrive” as my word for the year 2019.
 | Thrive, CD By Casting Crowns “If I could just get to the weekend.” “If I could just get through this semester.” “If I could just get to the vacation.” “If I could just make it through today.” So many of us today are simply surviving. But we were not made to survive, we were made to Thrive. Like a tree planted by the water (Jeremiah 17:7-8) we should be digging into God’s word to know Him and know who He has made us to be. We should be reaching out to the world and showing others who He is through our lives and our stories – knowing Him and making Him known. Thrive, the brand new studio record from Casting Crowns, is packed with the band’s signature style of songs about real life that redefine our identity in Christ, pointing us to our purpose from Him so that we may carry it out through Him. It’s time for us to more than survive. We were made to THRIVE! |
We were coming up on the last year that my husband would be in prison and I was more than ready to take my life back and do more than just survive. I started off the year creating a vision board. I set goals to achieve in order to take back my life and walk on water with Jesus, rather than treading water and gasping for breath as the waves crashed over me. I set goals to finish writing my first Bible study for women entitled “The Road to Relationship With Others”, to lose weight and exercise, and goals pertaining to reuniting our family once my husband returned home (which he is back home with us now!). Here is a picture of the vision board I created:
I am so excited that I have achieved or am well on my way to achieving every single goal that I set! I am so glad that I chose to Thrive, not just Survive! You too can take back control of your life rather than just letting the wind whip you wherever it wills.