One Little Word for 2014

image via Ali Edwards

Despite the best of intentions in years past, this year is the first year that I've planned to actively participate in One Little Word. For those that are unfamiliar with the concept, Ali Edwards made the movement popular and coined the phrase, but choosing a word to reflect on for an entire year is not a new concept. After careful pondering over the past few weeks, I established a word that I would like to reflect on for 2014: EMBRACE. 

Embrace can apply to so many aspects of my life. Our lives are changing, perhaps the biggest changes yet, with my completion of school and more importantly, bringing a little one into the world this spring. I hope to embrace all of the changes with open arms. I don't want to second-guess decisions that I make, I want to embrace each choice and move on. I want embrace each thing that I'm involved in, no half-hearted attempts at anything. I want to embrace disappointments, acknowledge them, and let them go. I want to embrace the good times and the not-so-great and grow from them.

Already, we're three days in to the new year and I've been challenged on my word several times. I struggle, as we all do, with people that have different personalities than myself, and those that make decisions that I don't feel are the correct ones. I'm attempting to embrace their personalities and decisions as their own, and focus instead on being solely responsible for the ways that I affect others. I'm not sure if it's from getting older or from being pregnant (LOL), but I struggle to hold my tongue when addressing someone or something that I'm not comfortable with. Embracing others (and myself) and all of their shortcomings is a way that I hope to become more Christ-like this year.

I've gotten ahold of a new Bible reading plan for the year that I am hoping, with God's help, to stick to. Through the daily reading, I will be able to make my way through the Old Testament once, and the New Testament several times by the year's end. I want to choose one verse that means something to me from my daily reading to record in my new sketchbook that I received from my Secret Santa this year. I want to embrace my relationship with the Lord and not have such a segmented life: incorporating craftiness and the Word together is one way in which to start.

Each month or yearly quarter, I would apply the word embrace on a different aspect of my life. I hope to share those with you after I've worked through each way. I sometimes feel that from sharing with others before you do something, you can set yourself up for failure before you even begin. 

What about you? Have you chosen One Little Word for 2014? If you have, I'd love to hear from you. Each word can be such an encouragement to hear!

Happy Friday!