Saturday, January 3, 2015

One word 2015; my word

I LOVE this commitment each year. I am still in shock that it's 2015 and, for record keeping sake, my husband entered the hospital on the last day of 2014, so I almost feel as though we are in a time capsule, we completely skipped over our traditional New Year's Eve celebration and instead replaced it with lab work and a visit to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital ER which then led my husband to be admitted on the 11th floor. Organ floor. Yes, looks like kidney failure again. I will try to update when we have some answers, for now we are in the waiting game to decide what the course of action will be.
We are strong, and I have no doubt we will get through this, the love and support of our family and friends that comes with a health crisis never ceases to amaze me and because of my husband's health history, I dare to say these bumps in the road are expected, even though they are never pleasant. God is with us.

My word for 2015 has been pondered and meditated over for the last few weeks. I was truly settled on a word, that I was going to announce a few days ago, but with all that's been going on, I didn't get around to it. Guess what, this morning, a word came BLARING at me, so if I would have announced my other word, I would have had to change it. It was that clear that my word for 2015 is to be:

B-I-B-L-E. 

(In case you were wondering, my word was GOING TO BE "Home", but now, it's not as fitting and maybe I will save it for another year)

So, 2015, my word is BIBLE.

God has been urging me to get more acquainted with my BIBLE. He has been faithfully and quietly urging me to pick it up much more regularly and I am looking forward to this year's journey.

Here is a great excerpt from my daily devotion email from Lutheran Church Charities, if you haven't subscribed to the devotional emails, I encourage you to do so.

"So when Bible reading becomes unrewarding, we quit. As a result we feel guilty and become spiritually weak and discouraged. Your soul can no more thrive without God’s Word than your body can thrive without a daily intake of food. The Bible says, ‘He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord’ (Deuteronomy 8:3). One of the dangers of the iPhone and Twitter is that you begin to live on ‘hits’ of information and short messages limited to 140 characters or less. This creates spiritual ADD (attention deficit disorder). God cannot be reduced to a limited word count or a few hurried moments in your day. To prosper, you must meditate day and night on the Scriptures (Psalm 1:1-3). You say, ‘But I don’t have time to read the Bible.’ How much time do you spend each day watching television? Hours? If you find television to be rewarding, but not God’s Word, your soul is in need of intensive care! If you want to change your life, change your habits and start reading the Bible. Job, who had more trouble than any of us will ever see, said, ‘I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.’
Prayer
Heavenly Father, help me this year to set aside time each day to read Your Word so that in You I can be strengthened to face the various things that life throws at me each day. In Your Precious Name, Amen"

Feel free to share your word for 2015 in the comments!! I would love to hear them!