My One Word, 2011

Praise.

That’s my word. At first glance, I’m shocked at myself. Way to be Christian-cheesy. As in, I’m going to praise God for everything, in all I do this year. Which prior to now, would have said to me, You’re a totally unrealistic fool who thinks being a Christian means that life is going to be perfect, and happy, and I’ll just praise Jesus all the time because I won’t have hard times to doubt or question him. Hello, look at me…miss sarcastic, pessimistic, analytical, etc….why wouldn’t I pick a word like Introspect. Or Pause. Or Listen. Or Find. Or Create. Or Wait. All things I need more of in my life, and all seeming to fit me, my faith, my life better than….Praise.

But God gave me this word. Literally. And stuff like that doesn’t happen to me. I’ve been very up and down lately in my faith. I’ve been recharged, and yet angry….emotional, and yet non-feeling….praying, and not praying. But God doesn’t often speak to me, and when he has in the past, it always comes in the form of very specific thoughts I will have (see what I’m like above), like when I randomly get a new solution to a problem or when I give someone advice and then think, wow, that’s really a good idea. That’s how God speaks to me.

Today I went running, first time in months, and man it felt great. I decided to listen to worship music b/c I just felt like I needed some up in my faith, yesterday was a lot of down. And I wasn’t even trying to think about the One Word project. But all of the sudden, there it was in my mind….Praise. And I felt like God was speaking into my thoughts, to me, understanding the person I am.

Find ways to praise Me this year…especially when you’re angry with Me.

Praise Me for the good stuff that you know you’ve taken for granted.

Praise Me for the loss that is painful because you know it’s for my good.

Find all the little ways to praise Me, Joni, because you will pull closer to me, and I will be faithful to you.

So I’m especially emotional right now b/c my grandfather is dying. It will be soon, within days or a few weeks, and he is my family’s rock, and a hero to me. But I’ll post on that later. But I felt like God was expressing to me that I do get the reality of life, it’s hard, we’re not perfect, and I hate the churchy pretending….and He knows that I’ve always struggled with “churchi-ness”, but that doesn’t give me the right to turn up my nose at doing something that is inherently basic to my love for Him and His love for me…..just because it’s something that makes me feel like an old Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher.

Praise me.

Thank you God, today for my son b/c he is so creative and frankly, it’s hilarious that he confuses the words “privacy” and “diarrhea”. (Imagine him yelling from the bathroom, “mom….I have privacy…privacy, mom.”)

Thank you God, today for my beautiful daughter who has such a strong, confident personality that at 7, she and I already wear each other’s patience thin.

Thank you God, today for my husband and his habits, all of which I love, even though I have literally devoted my life to trying to change them.

Thank you for my home, which will eternally be messy.

And thank you, thank you God, for my grandfather. And though right now I am in pain, You are going to take him home where he will finally be pain-free, and the legacy he has left me is staggering for your kingdom.

I think I can do this praise thing, and I think I can do it my way, the way that fits me. And I think that’s exactly what God wants.

Praise. 2011.

If you’re interested in this My One Word idea, check out their website. Tons of bloggers are doing this and if you google One Word, you’ll see hundreds of them, some of whom are claiming the idea. Who knows where it really started, but the most original site I could find is this one. I fell in love with this idea instantly, but struggled with what my word would be.

Thank you God, for giving me my word.