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Pursuing ‘who’ not ‘what’ this year
Let’s pause together and take a breath. The start of the year has been full of new possibilities, goal setting and uncertainty. I normally love the start of a new year and getting to dream for the time ahead. This year has challenged me. I wrestled with reflecting and setting goals. Part of me didn’t feel ready to be back in the midst of responsibilities and growth. I have set goals but hold them loosely in many ways. More than ever, I realise it is more about who I am becoming in the pursuit of those goals than ticking off a specific metric. I am pursuing ‘who’ not ‘what’ this…
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Staying tethered
Do you ever feel like you are getting lost in your own thoughts and find it hard to return to the real world? Does the lure of distraction and numbing tug at you constantly? Me too. There are times when I think I might just get lost and untethered permanently. Of course, this is often linked to times of overwhelm or pain but I am recognising more and more that there is a natural inclination in myself towards this. It can be both a strength and a challenge in many ways.
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Your invitation to recalibrate your word of the year.
How has your “word for the year” impacted your life so far? Did you ever get around to setting a focus for your year? If you did, can you even remember what it is? I confess that there have been many times this year that I have had to flick back to the first page of my planner to even remember my word. I can’t help but compare it to last year when my word remained sharp in my focus and seeped into my everyday. The experience has not been the same this year. Maybe you can relate to this. Did we choose the wrong word or phrase to focus…
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How do I look ahead to a new year in the midst of ongoing challenges?
In the final days of 2017, I find myself reflective as so many are. This year has had more than its share of challenges, heartache and “opportunities for growth”. There has been joy, growth and achievement in there too but the overarching sense that I am left with is heavy and hard. Maybe you can relate to that this year. I am not despairing in this sense of heavy and hard and it has not buried me. There is still underlying peace and strength that carry me through but it requires constant intention to access that foundation. I pray that you are not drowning, even in the midst of the…
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Reflecting on my word for 2017: faithful
As the year forges ahead and is almost at the end, I’ve started reflecting on my word for the year. My word for this year was faithful. When I settled on that word at the end of last year, I had no idea of the challenges that lay ahead. I didn’t know that I would be hanging onto that word with a white-knuckled grip at some points through the year. 2017 has brought challenge after challenge for both me and my family. It has felt like the hits keep coming. The word faithful took on a deeper meaning in my life and my walk with God. I was so glad…
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My connection epiphany
In the process of finding my word for this year, another word kept coming up, “wait.” I resisted this word. Wait is connected in my mind and heart with a dark season of two years where all I ever heard from God was wait. Every Scripture and message seemed to drill this unwanted message home. It was a time of frustration, feeling stuck and overwhelmed. I have come so far from that time that “wait” was the last thing I wanted to hear. Was there another season like that coming? It didn’t make sense seeing that all the other signs point to a year of surging forward and making brave…
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How do you reflect back on 2016 and set yourself up to start 2017 well?
Do you find yourself slipping into a reflective mode in this week between Christmas and New Year? I do. I booked time by myself to work through Amanda Vivier’s New Year Vision book earlier this week as my brain was furiously trying to process through the year that has been and wanting to get organised and look forward to next year. It was feeling like a chaotic process. My mind and soul were desperately trying to make meaning of a year that turned out very different to what I had thought at the start. I had ideas and plans flooding through my brain but in a haphazard way that was not…
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Embrace these days secure in His embrace
How do I learn to abide (my word for this year)? What does abide look like? These questions have been swirling for many weeks. I don’t have all the answers yet but am trusting that they will emerge as I continue to pursue this word with God. One element of abide that has been pricking at my conscious recently is abiding in my daily life. I find it so easy to skim through my days with my mind in the past and the future and the what ifs. Am I really living in my days? Am I dwelling in these fleeting moments with my daughter, my friends, my family? My…
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Looking ahead into 2016
Well that was a longer break from posting than I had planned! The words just have not been there the past few weeks. I was journalling and writing Scripture but nothing came when I sat down to write here. I received some wonderful encouragement in the Hope*Writers Facebook group about reframing the way I looked at this break and sure enough, the words have been itching in my fingers all day, waiting for the opportunity to sit in the quiet. Life has continued in the interim and has even included some changes. It has also included some unexpected challenges, a big step in a long-held vision and diving into the…
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Looking back at my one word for this year
It may be something that I forget about on a regular basis, but I did select a word to be my focus for this year. That word is “persist”. I talk about why I chose that word in this post. Persistence has been vital in this journey of increasing capacity. I need to remind myself of that more often. In almost every post in which I’ve written about capacity blockers in my life, I have used the words “work in progress”. Being in that constant state of growth and change, not feeling like you’ve “made it” yet can be discouraging at times. I get so frustrated at my own choices…
Encouragement for women in leadership
