My New Year's Phrase & words

Taken from my journal:

On New Year’s Day:
Thinking on the word: THRIVE. This past year I’ve worked on learning to nurture - even nurturing myself. This year, perhaps I need to expand that to thriving. Pull in my soil, reach way down with my roots, and spread my leaves upward. Stop subsisting & start thriving = living.

January 2, 2011:
It took me an extra day to decide on a “word”. It is more of a phrase along with a thought, though. The phrase is, “O Lord, for that which we are about to receive, make us truly grateful.” or “For what we are about to receive, Lord, make us truly grateful.” It is about the same, with just a slight variation.

The focus behind my word or phrase this year is to truly receive and to acknowledge receiving.

Too often I am given love, time, praise, thought, concern, etc., but I don’t receive it.

Think about people playing catch w/ a ball or balloon: If they receive the ball, they catch it, if they are so intent on giving back, they bat it away.

I have been batting things away.

So insistent on being a giver and not a taker, I don’t soak in the joy felt when love is shown. I think about how to give back, even being embarrassed at being given things (praise, help, etc) sometimes.

Have you ever heard children, when they don’t want to feel beholden to a person who has done a good deed to them or something given them say, “But I didn’t ask them to do it!” If we don’t receive the goodness of our fellow man or the goodness of God, but instead bat it away emotionally, we are in effect saying that same thing: “But I didn’t ask them to do it!”

If we receive it, embrace it, find true joy in it, we are being truly grateful. So, for all these things Lord, I am truly grateful.

I wanted my word to be “thrive”. To put down roots, shore myself in, and blossom, bloom, & THRIVE. But I haven’t learned how to receive yet. My shell is too thick to let myself sprout roots. I need to soften a bit first.

So, for this year, I will learn to receive with true gratitude. To learn to take with JOY what is given to me, to receive it, and then to transfer back to others that same kindness.

So again, I say: “O Lord, for all that I am about to receive throughout the year, make me truly grateful." Amen.

Coinciding “words”:
Joy Receive Gratitude

So for this year, I am going to focus more on feeling the joy and gratitude for the small gifts of time, love, service, etc. that is given to me. To truly receive those things.

I have been grateful in the past, but I haven't thought on what is happening. Perhaps life to too busy to enjoy that dandelion that is brought in. In the past, I would smile, kiss the child on the head, put the dandelion in a vase and then move on to the next item of business for the day.

This year, I will slow down. I will focus on the moment, drinking in the love that the child has shown me, the sparkle in their eye and the joy on their face, the warmth of love in my own heart. In essence, I will just be slowly down and allowing myself the gift of noticing all of those little things before I continue on with what I was doing before.

The Lord blesses me every moment of the day with things that I have taken for granted for so long that I have just come to expect it: the next breath, the next drink of water, the sunshine in the daytime and the moonlight at night, the laughter of my children, the beat of my own heart. Those things are all gifts. I intend to slow down and ponder on these things more often. To receive them with gratitude.

Sorry to be so long winded. :) I'd love to hear about the changes you'd like to see for yourself in 2011 too. :)

Have a wonderful day, full of the joys of the commonplace :)