My 2015 Verse of the Year

Every year for New Year, I have this huge pressure to do something big. It is the blog word right, and bloggers make big deals about all kinds of things – especially goals and holidays. So I join along, because I am a perfectionist who doesn’t want to get left behind in this blog eat blog world and I love doing big & cool things so that appear to be big and cool. This year my holidays were super busy and crazy in every way imaginable (emotionally, physically, spiritually.) I went running into the holiday craving a break and took a whole week off from everything in Florida on a freindcation. Then BAM home for the holidays, all day everyday. I had nothing. Nothing left for the new year and nothing left for a huge spectacular event on the blog.

I thought it would be fun to look back and see how the New Year played out the last couple years. Did you know that I have been blogging since 2010? Me either, I always kind of forget my early years because I wasn’t really blogging very often. In my New Year’s Goals for 2011 I was super vague – this is because I had no idea what my life would look like. I also had wonderful phone photography and awkwardly written paragraphs. YAY.  2012 I wanted to make a real list because I knew that is what bloggers did! I was just starting to read other blog and I wanted to figure out how the heck to gain a following. You have to notice the poorly sized instagram photo – with boarders none the less. Yikes.

Then 2013 came and it was my first year as a Mayberry. I had just gotten back from not blogging for like most of 2012 and wanted to jump on the word for the year adventure. I loved that you couldn’t “fail” a new years resolution like that. Hunger was my word for 2014, and while there was nothing wrong with it, I forgot pretty quickly what I was trying to make the year all about. So maybe I really did fail the word of the year challenge – can you do that? So now it was 2015. I was tired, I was excited but overwhelmed, I was packed with dreams that I felt would never come true, I was weary of doing it all on my own… and that is when it clicked. I can’t do this on my own. None of my past new year’s resolutions failed because they were silly. None of them failed because I shouldn’t have made them or they were not original enough. If they failed (and who says they did) it was because I lost steam trying to do it all alone. I stopped turning to the Lord daily. I stopped looking toward Him for my identity, purpose, desires, dreams, and goals. I let my quest for perfection keep them in my own hands.   I am not saying that the years went by wasted (because the Lord is so faithful and I can tell you they did not!) but I am saying that my heart was not ready for this year and I needed to do something different about it. And it is hanging where I can see if everyday so I never forget the work HE is doing.  

When Jessi of Naptime Diaries approached me with her team’s dream for a Verse of the Year Collection I cried. It was an answer to prayer in the best way. Because 2015 could be our year, or that is, the year I lay my desires for big, bold, huge, perfection in His hands and dream with Him.   It wasn’t long before it became all about me again. Pouring over verses to find the perfect one that would be destined to make for a good year. I sent numerous emails to Jessi trying to nail down the best verse for the year. I felt alone, even failed. I had the opportunity to do something signification with Jesus and my blog but I was falling short.   The day before New Years, a friend reminded me of a verse in Philippians and it was as if the Lord was saying “this is the verse I have for you.” That verse is the one that you see in these photos. On that giant canvas that is almost as big as me. It was a reminder to let go of that control yet again and a reminder of the promise He has.   Because I am not perfect but I sure do desire to be. That longing in my heart for wholeness, for mending, for all the hard work’s end, for completion. That is real and that is something I can hope in. It is not something I can do for myself, it is something that I am part of. Letting the Lord of my life, my Savior and King, continue the work He is doing in me. He started it and He will finish it and that is something I can hold onto.   So 2015 is filled with dreams, goals, hopes, and ambitions for sure but it is with the understanding (and daily surrender) that the Lord is the one who is working and He is the one who will finish it in His time.