Charity: Breathe

You know what time it is. Just like clockwork, it’s our word for the year. We share these with you every year to encourage you to pick one and share it with us. Sharing your word, really honing in on it and focusing on it helps us all hold each other accountable. I always love to ask people at the beginning and end of each year to see just how much they held onto the word and let it shape their year. I’ve come to find that by the end of the year, it has taken on a life of its own and the word means something completely different to me than it did at the beginning. So let’s buckle up and see where our words take us.

Okay, time to get a little vulnerable with you. With everything going on around us, raising kids to be good humans but also being constantly overstimulated, and honestly just who I am as a person… I’ve become very anxious. Not one of my favorite traits but the first step is admitting it, right? Well, for many other reasons this year, my word is breathe. 

If counting to 10 and taking a deep breath helps us get a better grasp of our emotions, or a situation, I’m willing to guess that centering a year around it couldn’t hurt. I don’t mean “breathe” in a kumbiya kind of way. I mean breathe when I need to “be still and know,” when I need to sit and take it all in, take in moments with my babies that I will never get back, take in the funny way they say words or what their hobbies are at the time. I want to take a moment to breathe and calm my soul from constant chaos and noise. I don’t want to live in a state of anxiousness, I want to find the peace that God intended for us to have in him. So I will practice being still and breathing through and in every aspect of life until it becomes a habit, and then a subconscious decision so that I can look back on the year and remember moments with a clear mind and calm spirit. 

Samantha: Chosen

“For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before Him.” Ephesians 1:4 

Chosen. I struggle with that a lot, as in why me? I think that I find myself questioning my relationships, the roles I’m put into and the challenges that I face. I often wonder why God put me where I’m at. Wouldn’t life be easier in the 1800s? Living in the middle of a Jane Austen novel, with no social media, no mom-guilt, no pressure coming from every single angle about how to raise my kids, how to live my life, how to be a woman and a mom and a wife? I wish I had a more prophetic way of putting it, but I just want to know why. 

But then I stumble on this verse in Ephesians – He chose us. He chose me. Jesus Christ chose me. He chose me to be the mom to Hudson and Jasper, He chose me to be Robbie’s wife and help guide and lead our family. He chose me to have a baby during the middle of a global pandemic because HE knew that I could handle it with HIS support. Jesus chose me because I am worthy, I am capable, I am enough. 

When I find myself questioning my why, I have to find my answer in Jesus. When I question the relationships in my life, I have to remind myself that Jesus chose me. My husband chose me, my kids (well, in this season when i’m their favorite person still haha!) they choose me. 

I am making this my word of 2024, because I need to be reminded of this. Every single day. I will wake up and remind myself that I am Chosen. When it feels like the world is against me, I have been Chosen. When I feel like I can’t fight these battles, I have been chosen. When I’m questioning my worth, I have been Chosen. When I feel like an awful mom, I have been chosen. When other people in my life are walking away, I know in my core that I have been chosen by my Creator, and even when other people don’t choose me, Jesus did and continues to every day.

While I will continue to pray this over myself, I am also making this my prayer for you this year. I pray that you come to the same realization that I have. I pray that you know that you were hand selected for this life, for these challenges and for these victories, for these roles that you fulfill. You were Chosen by Jesus, and knowing that the creator of the universe CHOSE you, should make you feel so special and loved every day of your life.