2018.

At the tail end of last year, I was despairing. My life felt like a big hot mess (hint: it was) and I was terrified of the road ahead. Scrolling through my social media feeds, I saw a bunch of friends posting their “word of the year” for 2018 using Jen Fulwiler’s word generator. I clicked over and as I hit the button to get my word, I prayed, “Please God, could my word just be SURVIVE so I know that this won’t actually kill me?” #dramatic

A couple seconds later the screen refreshed and my word blinked out in all its pixelated glory.

…

THRIVE.

I shit you not.

When I finally stopped laughing, I said, “Ok, God. I will.”

In the past year I’ve come to really understand what it means to thrive. It doesn’t mean having fun all the time. It doesn’t mean feeling fulfilled all the time. It doesn’t mean having it all figured out and smashing all your goals. It’s not about living that elusive “best life”.

To thrive is to grow. To stretch. To reach. To take what you have and see what you can do with it. To see the gifts that come from struggle. To thrive is to grow even when it really, really hurts.

To say 2018 was a hard year feels like both an understatement and an oversimplification. This past year I’ve been depressed. I’ve been anxious. I’ve doubted myself and God’s love for me at times. But I’ve also felt overwhelming peace. And known a hope that doesn’t seem to make sense. I’ve delighted in this crazy, chaotic beautiful world and spent an inordinate amount of time thanking God for each and every breath my precious children draw into their lungs.

At the end of each year, I hear so many people say, effectively, “Good riddance!” to the previous year. Or proclaim the year before so terrible that they’d rather have skipped it altogether. I understand it. Things happen that we’d rather leave in the past. Moving on is healthy. But I will never be able to look back on this year as a loss, because here I am, at the end of it, as a person more acutely aware of the goodness that surrounds me. I pay closer attention to both suffering and delight and am better able to just live those things as they come. It’s hurt to get here but I wouldn’t go back, because I can recognize and live true joy like never before.

With this in mind, I went back a few days ago and picked out a new word for 2019:

…

JOY.

I shit you not.