A Word for 2015

This time of year always causes me to reflect on the year before and look to the year ahead. For the last two years, I have set goals (see them here: 2013 and 2014), but this year I'm doing something different. Every year, at the service that follows Christmas but proceeds the start of the new year, the pastor at my parents' church challenges the people of his congregation to adopt one word for the upcoming year - a theme, if you will. I've seen people do this before - one of my friends blogged about "balance," I saw another guy who chose the word, "truth." I decided to participate this year, because lately I've been disappointingly overwhelmed by my concern for my own skin. I am so wrapped up in how things will affect me that I forget to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love my neighbors as myself. So my word for 2015 is: THEM.

Them is my family. My children. My husband. My parents. My brother. Them is my co-workers, my students, my teammates. Them is my church family, my ministry partners, my fellow Christ-followers. Them is the people checking me out at the grocery store, the people serving me at the restaurants, the people answering the phone at the doctor's office - them is everyone else.

I turned this into a journal at school. I was overwhelmed by the BEAUTY of their thinking, their reasoning, their writing. Here's the wordle I created using their words:

Created using wordle.net

Here's to making 2015 less about me and more about THEM.