One Word 365 - My Word for 2020-

Happy New Year, everyone! My mind can't wrap around the fact that it is 2020. Wasn't it the turn of the century just yesterday? So much in our life has changed since the year 2000! All three of our daughters are married now. We now have seven grandchildren and grand baby number eight, a grandson, is due in early summer. We planted a church in S.E. Portland that God has blessed in amazing ways. Our church moved to Vancouver, Washington and we eventually bought and moved to a home there as well. All of our parents have passed away. Some relationships that we thought would be in our lives forever faded away and new people came into our lives and have become dear to us. By God's grace, we've survived heartache and celebrated victories. Every need along the way God has provided. He has blessed us beyond what we could have imagined and certainly more than we deserve. We've traveled to places we only dreamed of seeing - London England, Paris France, Edinburgh Scotland, Managua Nicaragua, the big island of Hawaii, Maine, (four times in the past twenty years!), Ghana, (numerous times.) While so much in our life has changed, one thing has remained the same-God has been faithful every step of the way. And so, we have begun a new year, confident that He will continue to be faithful as we face the future.

Every year since 2011 I have had a word for the year as a point of spiritual focus. Most often, towards the end of the previous year God begins to show me what the word for the coming year is to be. Usually, it builds in some way on the word from the year before. Last year as I studied my word for the year, comfort, I found that in the Bible it is very connected to the concept of God rebuilding our devastated, ruined places. Throughout the Bible, God comforts His people by rebuilding them. God's kind of comfort is not just a pat on the head with a "There, there, you'll be ok." God's comfort is Him rolling His shirt sleeves up and getting into the middle of our mess with us to rebuild us. What grace! Whether our devastation is contributed to by others or whether we are our own worst enemy and have created our own mess, when we give our ruins to God, He graciously rebuilds us. 

This year in my Advent reading, I came across the familiar passage in Isaiah 9 where the coming Messiah is referred to as the Prince of Peace. In the Message Bible it says, "Prince of Wholeness." 

(For a child has been born—for us!

    the gift of a son—for us!

He’ll take over

    the running of the world.

His names will be: 

Amazing Counselor,

    Strong God,

Eternal Father,

    Prince of Wholeness.

His ruling authority will grow,

    and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.)

Questioning that translation I looked up the original Hebrew word, "shalom" and found out that it means peace and tranquility but it also means completeness and wholeness. At that point, I began to realize that God was showing me my word for 2020. He was continuing to build upon the concept of rebuilding that He had been speaking to me in 2019. He is on a continuing journey to bring me into the fullness of His peace, His completeness, His wholeness. I'm so thankful that He Who began His good work in me has promised to finish it!

Here are the words from previous years, beginning in 2011 when I first heard of the concept of a word focus for the year.

2011- HOPE

2012- DELIGHT

2013 -TRUST

2014- JOY

2015- ENDURANCE

2016- LISTEN 

2017- ABIDE

2018- YIELD

2019- COMFORT

and 

2020- PEACE

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When it feels like wickedness is winning...

I've felt such heaviness this week about the current events in our nation. Sometimes it looks like wickedness is prospering, doesn't it?  But through all of this week's heavy news, the Psalms have been a great comfort to me. It seems that the Psalmist David was having some thoughts similar to my own. "Why are the wicked not being dealt with? " "You are a God of justice, why aren't you doing something about this mess?" As I pondered these questions, I felt like I received a couple of insights.

1) God is a God of justice, but He is also a God of mercy. In His mercy, He doesn't mete out immediate judgment for mankind's wickedness. He gives individuals, and even nations, time to repent,  (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, January 27th, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Keep your mind set on the higher things...

Let's be honest. It's really easy for our mind to get stuck in the muck and the mire and the mundane of life on planet earth. At any given moment my mind might be wrestling with a worrisome situation, thinking about my to-do list, making a mental list of things I need to pick up at the grocery store, stewing about an offense in a relationship-all while I'm putting a load of laundry into the washer and chopping onions for the pot of chicken noodle soup that I'm making for that night's small group. Whew! Keep my mind on things above? How in the world do I do that?  (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, January 20th, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Clinging to Perfection in this Imperfect World...

I wasn't very old when my youthful idealism and sensitive spirit collided with the ugly reality of this imperfect world-loud, sometimes violent, arguments, Mama's depression and stay in the mental hospital, Daddy's affair and decision to leave Mama and us kids. I coped by frequently escaping into the perfect world I built in my imagination. In my mind I fashioned a perfect little house and a perfect little family-my dream of what life would be like when I grew up. 

It was our freshman year of college. I fell in love with his icy blue eyes, that dimple that only shows up when he's caught off guard smiling or laughing, and his singing voice. We got married the following summer. But, our life and marriage was nothing like I had dreamed it would be! Still in college, we lived in a small, furnished apartment, not the cozy cottage of my imagination. We were opposites from each other in so many ways, except for our common trait that we both had strong opinions that we very stubbornly clung to, butting heads frequently in our willfulness. The perfect life I had dreamed of was not to be. It took me a long, long time to let go of my perfectionist ideals, to accept the life I had, and to see how blessed I was in the middle of my life's messy imperfection.

I still lean towards being an idealist. I'm still shocked when betrayed by a friend, when a church leader fails, when I see the awful things people say to one another on social media, when I watch horrific things on the news. Perhaps the idealist tendency is in many of us. Perhaps it's because something in us knows that this sin twisted world wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be perfect, sinless, unmarred.   (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, January 13th, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Susan B. Mead
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One Word 365 - My Word for 2019 -

I can't fully put into words how much God has been doing in my life in regards to my word from last year, "YIELD". The more I have yielded, surrendered, to the will of God and the work of His Holy Spirit, the more I have yielded a harvest of peace within. For that reason, I thought of just keeping my word from 2018 as my word for this new year. But, God had other ideas. He spoke to me that yielding to Him and His will, ways, and word will be something that I will need to focus on daily for the rest of my life.  At the same time He began to speak to me in various ways about the word He has for me in 2019. 

It began in the fall. One day as I was listening to Handel's Messiah and puttering around the house, "Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people" began to play. God dropped into my heart that the word "comfort" was to be my work for 2019. I did not yield to His voice, because of two concerns. First of all, comfort is something you need when you are mourning, and after the loss of a niece and a nephew, a spiritual mentor and my husband's boyhood pastor and other hurtful losses in 2018, I was not going to sign up for any more mourning! The second, was the connotation of comfort being living in a rut, not taking steps of faith, staying in my comfort zone. So, instead of embracing what God was saying, I began to search for other "better" words - peace, hold fast, love.  Of course, because I wasn't yielding to God, I had no peace about choosing another word. Then, on the Sunday before Christmas, a friend from church gave me a handmade journal. On the first page she had written this verse. Isaiah 51:3 " For the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song or instrument of praise."  With that, God gave me a direct confirmation that I was to embrace and yield to what He had been showing me, that comfort was, indeed, my word for 2019. He also gave me insight into the meaning. Comfort is found as I yield and surrender to God's processes of rebuilding the broken, devastated, decayed and ruined places within. God is the Repairer of the Breach, the One Who takes all of our bent, twisted, broken parts and restores them into wholeness and realigns them with His heart, purpose and plan. God's comfort is found as I continue to yield, surrender, to His continued rebuilding processes in my life. I am amazed at how every year God builds upon the foundation of the focus of the previous year. 

Here are the words from previous years, beginning in 2011 when I first heard of the concept of a word focus for the year.

2011- HOPE

2012- DELIGHT

2013 -TRUST

2014- JOY

2015- ENDURANCE

2016- LISTEN 

2017- ABIDE

2018- YIELD

AND NOW THIS YEAR

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A prayer for peace...

This is part three of a Sunday Soul Food series on peace.
For part one click here.
For part two click here.

A prayer for peace-

Father God,

I thank You that you sent Jesus, my Prince of Peace, so that I can have peace with You.  I want to walk in love and unity with You. I know that I cannot have true peace within if I am walking in resistance or disobedience to Your will and your ways.   (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, December 9th, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Susan B. Mead
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Pursuing a peace filled Christmas season...

Last week on my weekly Sunday Soul food post at Woman to Woman Ministries, I wrote about choosing peace. (You can read that by clicking here. ) The main point I wanted us to grasp is that Jesus thought peace was important enough that He made it part of His last will and testament to us. His peace is our portion, our inheritance.

Today is December first. We are now in full blown Christmas mode. December is busy for most of us because there are extra holiday events added to our already full calendars. I am assuming that, like me, all of you crave a peace filled Christmas season. If peace is our portion, then what does it mean for us to pursue peace this season.   (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, December 2nd, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Susan B. Mead
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Choose peace...

 Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

John 14:27, especially in the Amplified Bible, is a lifeline verse for me. I meditate on it and pray it aloud almost every day. I've also shared it on my own blog and at Woman to Woman Ministries on more than one occasion. Yet, I felt that, especially during the busyness that the holidays bring, this verse was worth sharing again.

I have some pretty strong Martha tendencies. You know her, don't you?  She was the busy beaver sister of Mary and Lazarus. She was busy in the kitchen while her sister was sitting in the living room attentively listening to Jesus. Resentment started bubbling up in Martha's heart, so she put a bug in Jesus' ear and asked Him to make Mary lend her a hand. Instead, Jesus responded, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things." Then He told her that Mary was making a far better choice. Both Martha and Mary had made a choice. And in John 14:27, Jesus again is talking about choices for those of us who, like Martha, struggle with being anxious and troubled about many things.   (Join me for the rest of this post on Sunday, November 25th, at Woman to Woman Ministries where each Sunday I share a bit of Sunday Soul Food!)

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Susan B. Mead
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Sunday Scripture Blessings