Contentment

One word for 2024

/ edebock / 16 Comments

At the beginning of each year since 2017, I’ve chosen one word to inspire or guide me throughout the new year as well as a scripture verse to go along with it. My word for 2023 was contentment and the Bible verse, Philippians 4:12b. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” I wanted to be able to say with the apostle Paul that I had learned to be content regardless of my circumstances. 

Everything went pretty well for about eight months. In late March, hubby came through his prostate surgery well. We had a good summer season. We camped, hiked, kayaked and played lots of golf. Everything seemed to be going well and contentment came easily. Then things started to unravel. I worried about a close family member who was going through a very difficult time. Hubby and I encountered more issues with our health and life seemed to become a long series of trips to the city for medical appointments. I no longer came to the end of a day with a feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction. Instead, I was stressed! Tense! I berated myself for having had the audacity to choose a word like contentment! How could I possibly be content in my present circumstances? Thankfully, time, prayer, wise counsel, and an excellent massage therapist helped get me back on track. Now that the year has ended, I think I can say that I’ve come closer to being able to be content in any and every situation. I’m definitely still a work in progress though! 

It was during this dark time that I settled on my one word for 2024. 

Hope! 

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines hope as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen”. That meaning is definitely part of the reason that I chose hope as my word for the new year. I hope that 2024 is a good year for all of us. I hope that my family is happy and healthy. I hope that the embolization that I’ll be having to tackle the tumour on my liver is successful and that my cancer doesn’t grow or spread any further. I hope that hubby and I can travel more in the coming year (and not just to medical appointments!) Yes, I hope for many things, but there is a hope that is so much greater than any of these. 

This year, while my word came to me easily, choosing a scripture verse to go with it was more difficult because there were so many possibilities. I finally settled on two of them, Romans 15:13 and Hebrews 6:19a.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

and

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” 

The Biblical word hope is so much more than just wishful thinking. From the Hebrew word tikvah, it’s an expectation and a strong expression of faith. It’s a certainty that we can hold fast to. It’s confidence that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He will do. My hope, my certainty, is that some glorious day when the trials of this life are over, I will see Him face-to-face. He guaranteed it! This hope gives me strength to face whatever happens between now and then. It isn’t dependent on my circumstances. As I learn to depend more and more on this tikvah hope, the contentment that I yearned for in 2023 should become more and more real in my life!

bible-verses-about-hope-9-1585158075

What do you hope for in 2024?

Have you chosen a word for the new year? 

 

One word for 2023

/ edebock / 15 Comments

For each of the past six years I’ve chosen one word to inspire or guide me in the new year as well as a scripture verse to go along with it. My past words have been Still, Grace, Inspire, Bold, Truth, and Freedom.

Little did I know when I chose Freedom as my word for 2022 what a contentious topic it would soon become here in Canada. At the beginning of January, I couldn’t possibly have imagined that less than two months later hordes of protesting truckers would close Canada/US border crossings and take control of the streets surrounding our capital buildings in Ottawa, all in the name of freedom. As I wrote at this time last year, there are really two kinds of freedom, freedom to and freedom from. The so-called Freedom Convoy was fighting for freedom from Covid-19 vaccination mandates. There is no doubt that the pandemic did, at least temporarily, curtail our freedom to travel, to gather in large groups, to celebrate special moments with those we love, and to enjoy many of the activities that we once took for granted, but in my opinion, the protesters were forgetting that with freedom comes responsibility. When I chose Freedom as my one word for 2022, it wasn’t Covid that I had in mind. I was thinking on a very personal level of freedom from trauma induced bitterness that had taken hold in my life.

When it came to choosing a new word for 2023, I considered several possibilities. When I first started thinking about this in late November, I was suffering from scanxiety. As I worried about whether or not my neuroendocrine cancer was spreading throughout my body and thought ahead to hubby’s upcoming prostate cancer surgery, I thought that perhaps Courage was the word I wanted. Once I learned the results of my most recent CT scans, however, that didn’t feel like the right word anymore. For several years I’ve considered choosing Intentional as my one word, but as I thought about that one I realized that I already live quite intentionally. I wanted a word that would give me something more to aspire to in the coming year. But what would that word be?

I thought about how good I feel at the end of a productive day, a day that has gone really well, and tried to come up with a word to describe that feeling. Surely that would be a good word for the coming year. Accomplish came to mind and I almost settled on it, but then I decided that it was too work or task oriented. I do feel great at the end of the day if I’ve accomplished a lot, but I also feel that way when we’ve spent the day hiking or paddling the kayak.

After pondering some more, I finally settled on the right word.

Contentment

According to the Collins English Dictionary, contentment is “a feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction”. Perfect!

Once I’d finally settled on my word, choosing a scripture verse to go with it was easy. I knew right away that it would be Philippians 4:12b.

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

Whether my health continues to be stable or begins to deteriorate, whether the Covid pandemic is truly over or not, whatever my circumstances are in the coming year, I want to be able to say with the apostle Paul that I have learned to be content in any and every situation. As I plan my days, I’ll consider what I need to do to end each day with that feeling of quiet happiness and satisfaction and hopefully act accordingly.

41+G9hEvTtL._AC_SY780_

Have you ever chosen a word to inspire or guide you in a new year? What would your one word for 2023 be?