My One Word 2013

For three years, I have participated in the My One Word Challenge, much to my own benefit.  PLEASE consider accepting the challenge of your own word...just try it.

My Words:

• Year 1:  Peace...so important during a year when I seemed to experience so much conflict and trouble, at work and during the loss of my mom.
• Year 2:  Quiet...the quiet during and after the storm.  The quiet I enjoyed also when I deliberately held my tongue.  Very powerful that not speaking is!  I also enjoyed more quiet time for me.  A really good thing.
• Year 3:  Fit...mentally, emotionally, physically.  All better in some ways...and in some, I still need to focus.  Hint...going to for a walk today!

My One Word 2014:  Smile

Why the word smile?  This may seem like a strange answer, but here goes...

When I was in college during my senior year, I was selected Miss Arkansas College.  What was amazing about that time to me remains that I was a "good" girl, one who, because of religious preferences, always wore dress, had long hair, and wore no make-up, yet I was chosen.  Why?  As I have looked back on that time, I think really do think I achieved that honor because I smiled and spoke to everyone.  I was just a friendly person.

Am I not now?

Yes and no.  This thing called adulthood causes us to change:  we have more responsibilities, we know who we are (if you don't like it, then that is your problem...ever heard that one?), we tend to like who we are, we more more self-dependent.  

As the year-end nears, I have begun pondering on my next word, and this memory keeps flashing to the forefront.  That and also because I do not think I am perceived as I once was.  Just last week, I was described as "prim and proper," although how I was in college probably fits into that category also!  I want my students to see me as happy.  I want to smile more.

I also want to smile more emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  Consider this:

Proverbs 15:13  A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

Proverbs 15:30  A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones. (NIV)

A cheerful face!  A joyful heart!  Healthy bones!  Yes, this is for I!  I'll take it!

The Double Whammy

Today, I am still reflecting on my yesterday's Bible reading in Genesis 4 where God says to Cain, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

Then below in the study notes, the commentator states, "For Cain to master the sin lurking at the entrance to his desires, he would have to give up his jealous anger so that sin would not find a foothold in his life.  Sin is still crouching at our doors today.  Like Cain, we will be victims of sin if we do not master it."

Jealous anger = the double whammy.  Or is it the triple threat...his coveting led to jealous anger?

A personal application:  I have coveted positions within my school district (positions for which I was more qualified than those who obtained the positions...not bragging, just a fact), yet God has consistently said, "No, Tammy, the timing is not right." 

Yet I rebelled and spent several years in "jealous anger."  Jealous of those who had the spotlights I so coveted, spotlights under which I just knew I could have accomplished so much more...yes, the anger part.  Maybe I was also angry with God?  I voiced this a bit more gently in the hundreds of times I questioned, "Why, Lord?  Why me?  Why not?"  Instead of "why," I am sure to the Lord it sounded more like whining!  Unfortunately, I think I mastered that tone!

Then, came the climax of all that I could handle at school.  Then and only then, did I finally and truly begin to turn all this over to the Lord.  Then my answer began to be revealed. This, too, though, came in steps.  No, few of the lessons I have learned in this Christian walk have been handed to me on a silver platter!

First,  I FINALLY realized that if God does not want a door opened, I could literally nearly beat myself mentally to death and never would that door open. Never.  No one should conquer the age of 40+ and not have a revelation of this!  If a door is sealed shut, I do not have the power to open it!

Second, I attribute my signing up for the My One Word Challenge as part of the healing and acceptance that then followed.  Last year, about this time, on KLOVE radio I heard about this challenge and immediately knew my word...peace.  I needed it so badly, and the Lord gave it to be, sometimes in small doses, sometimes in large amounts.  Thank you, Lord. 

I am not the person I was a year ago...thank you, Lord.

I can sit and peacefully write that I do not covet positions in my school district right now. The jealousy and the anger are gone.  Thanks to the peace that passeth all understanding.  Not thanks to anything I did, but thanks to a gift from my Lord and Saviour, for He truly saved me from that trial in which He placed me, for I have had several opportunities to leave, several job offers, and could never take any of them, for I truly did not believe leaving was the Lord's will.

This year, my chosen word for the My One Word Challenge is quiet.  I need ever more of the quietness of His Spirit.   I want to be totally immersed in His Quietness.

I shared some of this with the ladies in my Sunday School class this past weekend, and teacher Peggy then noted...prepared us for...that as we accept such a goal, then we have to prepare ourselves for what we might encounter as our words are tested.

True.  Last year, my mother nearly died, my daughter had major-open heart surgery, my husband had a severe attack of kidney stones, and then there was that thing called life, all that we just normally encounter.  Through all this, though, I cannot tell you the number of times, I embraced my troubled mind in that, oh, so powerful word...peace.

Yes, I agree with Mrs. Peggy, yet I know that God gave me this year's word of "quiet," and He will meet me there in the quietness of my soul.

Again, I encourage you to take the My One Word Challenge.  Please visit their site for more information, then listen for that still, quiet voice...hear Him?...He will give you the gift of your word...and then prepare yourself for a testimony that you will have one year from today! 

God bless.