The Party That Never Quits

The word "yes" isn't recorded in the Bible* until 17 chapters in.

It comes as an acknowledgement of facts... deal stopping human facts... and then God comes through with His awesome BUT^f...

Abraham fell face down; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.  I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.  And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” (Genesis 17:17-21)

Not only did God acknowledge that it seemed (understatement much?) hard, if not impossible, but He honoured Abraham's request, while explaining the exceptionally HUGE things God would accomplish through these two boys.
I also noticed verse 21, which is why I left it in there...

But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”

Hello.

He began his sentence with Yes.

Then gave it a time frame.

And so, I ask (without laughing)

"Can a happy family really come from the train wreck of the last two years?  Can I resurrect the fragments of our family? Oh Lord, that you would make my family an upstanding one."

What will be birthed in me, from me, by this time next year, simply because I say "yes"?




*New International Version, and most others, except The Message

My word is “YES”

Yes to picnincs, just one more movie, board games… cups of tea, midnight swims and movies on the couch without the computer…

To going deeper…

Being more deliberate…

More present.

I needed an all encompassing word. One that incorporated my kids and my husband, my home and my God.

Other words I had considered were

deliberate
discipline
joy
grace

All really good words, and I've seen people choose them. I applaud them. They are courageous words to take on board.

But for me, 'yes' meant all of them. To learn things that I have been avoiding for a long time. Yes to change. To do things where I had to choose to go against what I would necessarily have done. "Yes" requires me to be unselfish. To get up off my butt, or stop what I was doing that was "so important". To do what I know is right, or fun, or necessary.

"No" and "but" were banned.

Already, in this first week of One Word, I have played scrabble and Go Fish with Troy, let Bethany play with my hair, let them stay up late for "just one more movie", fetched that many cups of tea I've lost count, let Eli and Amy sleep in our bed and played Mario Kart with Adam at 3 o'clock in the morning. When Adam asked me to skip church and stay home whith him this morning, I said yes.

Ok. So that one didn't take too much arm twisting, but I'm chalking it up.

The week has been significantly less stressful, even with Adam at home ill with a bad ear infection. (Hence why he didn't go to church).  I've let the days roll even more than normal, and haven't beat myself up for not doing more.

It's been lovely.

I'm grateful that my first foray into this hasn't been overly difficult.  I'm sure the Lord gave me the word to grow and stretch me though, and you can't do those things without a few tests and spiritual blisters. So needless to say, I'm not taking this first week lightly.

I'm sure "yes" will get more challenging as the year goes on.

As a side note, Lisa Leonard is giving away two Word for the Year necklaces over on her blog! Leave a comment and you will go into the draw. What a beautifully lovely way to remind yourself all year!

Happy New Year, every one! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, and awake to a bright sparkly twenty-eleven.

Adam and I (and the kids... apparently it's frowned upon to move and leave them behind) have moved, and we are now in a bigger place with more room than we know what to do with, and it's been great.  The kids are still feeling it out, but that's to be expected. There are new boundaries out here, and a whole new way of interacting that they will need to sort out between themselves.

Adam and I are hopeful this year will be much less stress free... not only at home, but within our ministry as well. The year ended pretty badly, with us losing our bassist and our pianist/our day off leader, so we are left pretty well by ourselves again. But, January usually brings an influx of people to the Territory, usually with Army postings and people beginning new jobs, so we are praying (fervently) for an influx of musicians and leaders. 

Personally, I made the resolution to *gulp* give up coke.

Most people laughed.

It's a running joke that I'm a coke addict, and it's uh... true. But the thought came to me quite easily, so I thought... why not? Way to being healthy and all that, right? It's not exactly something that requires chronicling, but every now and then I'll probably let you know how I'm going.

I'm also hoping to read the remaining 75 books on that list over there. We do have some of them as e-books... but I don't know about you... but I much prefer proper books. The feel, the smell... Looks like I'll be hitting the used book stores. I prefer old books anyways, so that's no big arm twist.

Here, I'm going to be participating in a few fun bloggy things... such as...


I've finally settled on a my word for the year, and I'll talk about that tomorrow. I'll  probably give an update on Sundays as to how I'm going with it. For some, it may seem a strange word, but I've been using the opposite of it for so long... mainly because I'm lazy. This word will cause me to be more pro-active in many areas of my life, and in a way, it will also incorporate a number of the other words I was debating on using.




I began this sort of kind of not really twice last year, but I fully intend on doing it properly every Thursday this year. I have the space now, and with my "one word" I kind of also don't have an excuse not to.


I've done something similar to this in the past, which you can read here. This.. this I need to do for my life. To slow down, to find the beautiful in the mundane. The miracles in the ordinary.

So. What are your plans/hopes/dreams for this brand new year? I'd love to hear them.