Words for the New Year: A Gift from my Family

 

I love the trend among bloggers to pick a word for their year. The words are often thoughtful and inspiring: Risk. Go. Grow. Slow. Balance. Nourish. My birthday is two days after Christmas, so I have always used blowing out my candles to reflect on my hopes for the upcoming year.  Meaning that from my 12^th until my 17^th birthday I blew out my candles, and wished, as the lights winked out, for a kiss.

 

 

But I have this childish persistent ritualism: you can’t share what you wish on candles. The wish might not come true. And those wishes tend to be rather private—something I’m only comfortable sharing more than a decade later.  But still, I know that words and desires spoken aloud have power. So I asked my family to take a few minutes last week to put a new spin on the pick-a-word-for-the-year tradition: we picked words for each other.

 

 

Now, it is a bit delicate. You don’t want to pick a word that seems like a criticism, or a word that taps into unresolved interpersonal conflict. But in that vulnerability and intimacy, there is also power to speak blessing into each other lives. There is a sweetness in hearing the hopes and dreams of your family for your year.

 

 

 

 

To hear my brother give me the word “breakthrough,” and I know he’s praying blessing over my writing, that is a gift.

 

 

His wife echoes it and gives me “productive.” My mother speaks the word “gentle,” and I know that she knows my heart to bridle my passions and my tongue in gentleness. My dad thoughtfully says, “joyful” the hope of a father for his little girl to see beauty and art in daily work.

 

 

And Evan gives me the word “friend,” knowing that this year is going to be a year full of change, and Lord willing, a few new friends to soften the sadness of so many goodbyes.

 

This year, we also spoke blessings over my tiny niece tucked inside her mother’s tummy until May: Healthy. Cherished. Smiles. Breath. Sleep. Gift.

 

 

There is something so sacred about choosing a word when we’re all gathered together before we scatter for the year. It’s quick, just a sacred, slim moment, and I know that my family does it because they love me. (Well, and my mom does it because she loves this kind of thing too. Actually, as one of her Christmas presents this year my dad made a little booklet for me to write down all the words, so she can keep it and look at it all year.)

 

 

The power of these few words also reminds me that all year I can choose to use my words to speak life and love into others’ lives.  I am struck by this power of words as I spend my days with a small child who is learning words. I quickly see their power to build up and tear down.

 

 

Almost every day we repeat the phrase, now a little liturgy in the middle of trips to the playground and unwanted naps, “Jesus gives us a gentle heart to use gentle words and gentle touches.” I need to hear those words more than the toddler at times. And how glorious are his gentle words. One of his new phrases of late has been to exclaim at the top of his lungs, “Hi, Mr. Evvvvaaan! I’m so glad to see you!” It is the most genuine and enthusiastic welcoming.  May I too choose to be glad to see people, and to tell them so, and to speak hope and blessing upon them.

 

 

And I want to choose gentleness.  I want to choose joy. I want to choose to be a friend who is kind, a sister who is caring, a wife who is warmhearted, a daughter who is compassionate, and (someday) a mother who is patient. I want this year to be a year where my words build up—to build up my novel, my blog, and my family.  May it be so.

 

 

Have you chosen a word for 2014 for yourself or those you love?