This is my year.

 

 

I’m big on setting goals and dreaming dreams and making plans, but as we left behind the ignominious 2020, I knew that my focus would be different for 2021.  This, my friends, is the year that I want to finally and fully nail down what it means to be loved by God.  Listen, I know that I should already know this.  Maybe you know you should know it, too.  But finding myself so shaken by circumstances and social media and politics this year, I realized: I haven’t yet scratched the surface of His deep and UNshakable love for me.  

 

The thing is: If His love is meant to be the firm foundation of my life, and if I do not take the time to know and understand it, then I could be building a beautiful home on a pile of packing peanuts (the flimsiest thing I could think of because early-morning analogies are hard.)  So many lives look beautiful from the outside but are inherently unstable when the chips are down and that’s a problem in more ways than one.  Did you know that earthquakes don’t kill very many people?  Falling buildings kill people. Buildings that cannot stand the shaking.  

 

And imagine, if we truly learned to live loved – what might be impacted in our lives? I scratched out a quick list in my trusty notebook:

 

  • My view of myself and my “achievements” 
  • My approach to conflict 
  • My marriage (I’m learning so much about this!) 
  • My parenting
  • My goal-setting and task-doing 
  • My view of His Church 
  • My need to self-protect 
  • My relationship with fear and anxiety (such a big one!)
  • My relationship with money 
  • My relationship with food and body image (Ack! This has been huge for me!)
  • My view of my enemies
  • My relationship with aging 

 

So, this is my year.  

 

I began this pursuit a few weeks ago, diving first into Psalm 139 and sifting through it word-by-word, and I cannot believe what I am discovering as I go.  The beauty inside the love of God for me – and for YOU – is beyond telling.  

 

But I’m going to try to tell it.  My current plan is to post a couple of times each week (or month, or year…we’ll see how it goes), whether anyone reads it or not.  It’s good for me to have a rolling record of how His love unfolds this year. If you want to roll along with me, you can start by reading Psalm 139 in every translation you can find (www.biblegateway.com will give you a handy parallel experience).  Maybe grab a new journal or one of your kids’ spiral notebooks that has gone to waste in the era of online learning and scribble out your own thoughts…perhaps you’ll build such a solid case for His love for you that you’ll never question your own value again. Wouldn’t that be a wonder in 2021?  

 

 

Okay, so this is my little intro.  Tomorrow…the beauty that is Psalm 139:1.  

 

With hope,

 

 

Bo

 

4 Comments

  1. So glad to see you back on your blog!!

  2. I really need this. I’m looking forward to doing the deep dive.