word

everyday i hear someones word for the year. i love this. absolutely love this… except i hated my word last year. it made me upset and frustrated. not only did i not embrace it, but i tried to ignore it. when this word comes to you i believe it is a ‘not-so-silent’ urge of your heart. last year my word was WAIT.

if it had been PLAN, i would have embraced it.

if it had been ENJOY, i would have done this full heartedly.

even if it had been LINGER or PAUSE it would have sit better in my head and my heart.

but WAIT! for someone like me this is hard. really hard. excruciating. i am a doer, set a plan, get it done type of person. i don’t wait for everything to be ready to get started. i jump in with everything i have.

but

last year i needed to WAIT.

waiting let me grow into a friend for my sweet baby J’s momma so that i rejoiced when he went home full-time to live with her.

waiting let me learn a new way to do things that allowed our happy baby K to be adopted out of foster care. a process that isn’t normally done, but was perfect for him and his family.

waiting let me enjoy my summer with our family and help others who needed help. it allowed me to take almost a whole month off to enjoy summer and my kids.

waiting let me meet a sweet little girl and say good-bye to her within 72 hours.

waiting let me enjoy each of my wedding couples fully because i had time.

waiting let me see my sweet Sunny thrive in her classroom because i waited for her to show us she could do it with the right team. we waited for the connection between her teacher and her and now get to glow in the safety she feels with her and in her school.

waiting let me see my husband in a new light. waiting for him to have his shoulder surgery he showed great strength. waiting for him to recover showed his determination. waiting for him to hear if it was successful while doing rehab was extremely hard, but he was so sure of himself. hearing that he needed another surgery deflated both of us. we had to start the whole process again of waiting. he went for his second surgery knowing what to expect (which is sometimes worse) and was unrelenting in his conviction that he wanted to be better… not just ok. now we wait to see if this surgery was a success and if he will be able to go back to his career. he has shown me commitment and unrelenting strength and i am so proud of him.

waiting gave me time to have my heart broken with loss so many times this year that i didn’t have any more tears to cry. it broke me to where i questioned my worth because why would someone who is trying to just do what is right get hurt so many times. waiting in these times made me want to move quickly past the pain so i could just forget, but it is hard to forget faces of the kids that have left my home and my arms or didn’t make it to my arms… don’t get me wrong, seeing their faces as they grow with their mommas/families is amazing but it hurts every time you catch a glimpse of their lives. i read a post by mike lemieux posted that he learned the ability to hold grief in one hand and joy in the other. this is exactly it.

i can feel this with the joy and grief i face everyday being a foster/adoptive momma and having a husband who is recovering and not back to work. i feel this in an opportunity to live a lifestyle my soul craves but logistically is still waiting for everything to work out. i also feel this in my responses to decisions in my life. i am waiting for them to be right for us and i believe it is working.

as we started the new year my word came springing into my mind. again i tried to ignore it, but it is unrelentingly still there. LISTEN. i don’t know what it means fully for us and for the year, but i do know it isn’t far from the WAIT and really does seem like a natural next progression in my learning to becoming my best self .

do you have a word for the year? i would love to hear it and learn more about you.