My word for 2014

I am so excited for a new year!  For me, 2013 was a good year.  I have really enjoyed living back in the city.  I continue to enjoy teaching.  And I have enjoyed so many memories with my family, including a couple of wonderful trips to the beach and a trip to Disney World.  I love the ages/stages of my children right now.  Of course there has also been disappointments, trials, and exhaustion.  But overall, it's been a good year!

This is my seventh year to pick a yearly word.  It's like picking a reoccurring theme for the year, because once it is chosen, the Lord uses it often in my life.  This year my word is: Listen.  The idea is that I want to LISTEN to God eagerly, through prayer and His word and prayer.  Also, I desire to LISTEN to the people that God has/will place in my life and then serve them.  I hope this idea of listening will allow me to be more intentional and consistent in my time with God, have more one-on-one time with my family and friends, and in seeking personal conversations with those who need me to hear them- students, peers, children, non-believers. 

"Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.  I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David." Isaiah 55:3

::Good words::

“There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community    

Anticipation::2013

Catechesis::2012

Delight::2011

Peace::2010

Satisfaction::2009

Courage::2008