I’ve been dragging my feet to write about my new word for the year, and at this point I just need to say something! If you’re new here, I’ve been choosing a word to guide the year for almost a decade (!). I was most intense about it in the mid-to-late teens, although I still don’t choose a word lightly. I think about what I currently need and where I want to grow. Sometimes the word emerges slowly, sometimes it hits me like an anvil. 2023 is an anvil year. I was literally at a stoplight at Central and Highland when I got bonked in the head with this word, and clearly sensed the Spirit telling me, “Because you don’t know how to do this anymore.”
ASK: to question; to make inquiry; to request information about; to petition or make a request; “a request, especially a demanding one.”
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. – Matthew 7:7-11
Anytime someone asks me for something, the very first thing I think is, “How can I move worlds to make this happen?” It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a professional associate, or a complete stranger. I don’t ask myself, “Does this make sense to do? Do I have time for this? Does this work for me? How do I feel about this?” I just start moving things around on my to-do list to fit in this new thing. – Heather Havrilesky
We learn contentment. We learn how to settle. We learn how to accept our weakness but never ask for God’s strength. How to accept our poverty without expecting provision. We learn to live with the ache of never enough. We pray to God as if we don’t know him at all, we live with bastardly longing—because a true child would ask. A true child would crawl right up into God’s lap and ask for a better story. – Alia Joy, Glorious Weakness
If you want to do good work, what you need is a great curiosity about a promising question. – Paul Graham
Becoming a mother has really set me back in my personal growth. Bringing home a newborn for the first time, accompanied by PPA and PPD, pushed the reset button on ten years of unraveling the programming that made me a doormat. In an instant, I became Doormat 2.0. I am just now, 19 months later, starting to regain some of my autonomy and independence and self-worth. I am trying to ask for what I need, instead of burying myself so as not to inconvenience anyone. I am trying to, as Dr. Becky says, seek the “most generous interpretation” instead of assuming the worst intentions from everyone. I am trying to have curiosity again about people and the world, to have ideas and plans. I would also like to kick my fairly dormant prayer life up a notch, without reclaiming any of my old baggage about it.
So that’s what I’m doing this year. Asking. I notice that this is only my second verb ever, the first being last year. I guess two years of quarantine put me in need of some action.
Anyone want to share your word?
Past words: Release // Peace // Love // Fearless // Abundance // Light // Enough // Alive // Focus
Oof. That Havrilesky quote. I felt that in my sternum.
My word is home, and for some of the same reasons. I need to (re)discover where I feel at home the most, not only regarding environment but things I’m asked to do or participate in that I just say yes to out of habit. I’m examining a lot of those this year. Also I need to get my physical home in order because mental health, so I need to say no more often to give me time to do that.
That’s a good one!