2022 has, in one word been nuts. Utterly mad, chaotic and crazy. I had a baby and that's pretty much all you need to know.
My word for 2022 was grace. I was to give myself grace on parenting, art, creativity, home ed, my home, and I did. Giving myself grace was supposed to mean forgiving myself when I couldn't achieve everything that I wanted to, grace was supposed to mean forgiving myself when I did not achieve perfection, and it was supposed to mean resting in the moment rather than frantically trying to do everything. Grace did all these things for me, whenever I started feeling like I wasn't doing enough, wasn't good enough I reminded myself that this year I would give myself grace. 2021 was a stinker, bad pregnancy, covid, my husband nearly dying, and numerous hospital visits, slow progress on our house and umpteen other unfortunately events meant I was all out of energy and motivation. Grace was what a needed for 2022.
And I did indeed give myself grace, I gave myself grace in abundance, I totally and utterly clocked off from trying, the grace I was giving myself started mean that I became a bit lazy, I started to give myself excuses for doing the things that I should have been, could have been and wanted to be doing. For much of the year grace ended up meaning not trying too hard at anything. And in the end this was not the goal.
Although I did feel a degree of peace in not putting a lot of pressure on myself to achieve, I have ended up looking back and feeling like the year still very stressful and chaotic and I've ended up feeling a little bit disappointed with myself, and and that's not a nice feeling.
It was back in November that I realised the word I needed for 2023. It had been in my mind since my baby was born at the end of December 2021. Joyful. He was born at home about 20 minutes before the paramedics and midwives arrived, just me and my husband and it was perfect. When he was born I felt the most exquisite joy wash over me and I began to laugh! His name means joyful.
Unfortunately thinks went bad after that, and joy wasn't something I could access for quite a while.
But I am so ready for joyful in 2023, and I'm excited to find out how I can make all aspects of my life joyful. I'm going to explore joyful eating, joyful dressing, joyful home school, joyful marriage and joyful parenting to name just a few.
As I prepare for the year ahead I have been turning to the Bible to inform how joyfulness can influence my year and there are two things that strike me most. First, joy comes from Christ and second joy in not dependant on circumstances. I will talk more about this in the year, but those two factors are going to be infused into every aspect of my word of the year and I'm really excited to experience the year unfolding with joy at the heart.
Do you have a word of the year? I'd love to hear what it is a why.
