For the past few years, as December has come towards its end, I have asked God what my word for the New Year will be. What began as something I tried after reading an Instagram post from someone called AussieDave (Dave Adamson), a photographer whose images and writing I find inspiring, has now become my end of year practice. Seeking God on the overarching theme for my coming year has encouraged me to see where and how He wants me to focus my eyes. The word has acted like a spring board into what God is pressing into with me and what I am being asked to surrender to, grab hold of or grow in. By the end of each year I’ve also been able to see with greater clarity and vision how great, how far and how wide God’s plans for me are, as well as how little I am able to see in my own strength. I’m learning that what I think the meaning of each word will look like always falls far short of the reality and I’m also discovering that year on year I’m growing new shoots of trust and surrender. Gradually I’ve become aware of my own willingness to surrender more and more to the plans and purposes of God as each new year comes around and with it a new word. Learning to ungrasp my hands, let go of trying to shape or steer where I think I should go and relax into God’s plans for me hasn’t been easy, but it’s bearing fruit.
My word in the first year of asking, December 2017, was Joy. I have to be honest, I felt quietly smug when I got this word; whilst other members of my family got Grace and Hope. I was to discover that my ways were very much not God’s ways. I imagined my year to come was to be full of unending joy, fun and ease. From my perspective this was a totally reasonable thought. The previous few years had been incredibly hard ‘valleys of dry bones’ tough going. So the idea of experiencing a year of light and breezy joy felt delightful. How little I understood or saw what being given a word like Joy would mean. Joy, an interesting word to be given for 2018. This was the year my mum was handed an end of life diagnosis and given just a week to live, my sister was discovered in her flat dead and several other close family members also died, one of whom was only 36 years old. A year that I, mostly against my own will, began to lead a house church after attending the same church for over 11 years and wasn’t ready to leave. The year that every ligament in my ankle was badly damaged and saw me wearing a supportive boot and walking with crutches for almost three months. A year that ended with a request to fly back to New Zealand over Christmas without my family. A year that on the surface was littered with pain, loss and sacrifice.
However, as I’ve come to learn, looks can be deceptive. Digging beneath the surface of that year there were glowing nuggets of joy. I may have been on crutches, but it was also the year I finally explored Rome, albeit slowly; a city I had always wanted to visit, but for several reasons hadn’t, which made siting on the wall outside the Coliseum accepting there was no way I could manage to walk around it all the more bittersweet. My incapacity may have denied me access to the great Roman Amphitheatre, but it also created the most ridiculous moments that would never have happened if I’d been fit and able. Laughing, at times with tears streaming down my face, at the sheer ridiculousness of my circumstances that included being carried down the stairs of St Peters by Vatican Guards and being given special entrance access whilst others were told it was closed for the day.
In that same year I flew to Portugal, to join a friend for the weekend, and experienced the joy of wandering around the local fish market in the early morning and catching ferries to nearby islands full of glowing white sand and aqua sea. With my mum’s sudden end of life diagnosis came a reason to seek out my sister who, due to mental health issues, had been missing from the family for over three years. In finding her and bringing her home, she unexpectedly gave her life to Jesus; deciding she wanted a life not filled with pain, but peace. She said yes to Him at my kitchen table during the very first night of coming home. Home not just to her family, but home to the one who would never let her down, who had never left her and who was waiting to lead her beside still waters into peace, joy and family. I couldn’t have foreseen, only 6 months later, my sister would be dead, but during that spring and summer we got to spend time together. Collecting her so she could come to house church and watching her with eyes closed and tears streaming down her face as she began to let God unpick and unravel the lies of her life that had held her captive for so long. As the summer arrived and we spilled out into the garden Sunday lunches became filled with laughter, sharing memories and stories. Moments infused with love and peace and joy. My sister hadn’t known much joy through her life, but those 6 months as we told each other how much we loved one another, joy was in evidence. I’ve written already in my previous post about the revelations that my trip to New Zealand brought me. 2018, a year of discovering that joy comes in, through and out of mourning.
For 2019 my word was Fearless, not exactly the word I would have chosen for myself after walking out Joy in 2018; a word that I couldn't help but wonder what I would have to travail during the year to come. As it turned out, it was a year full of travel and God’s awesome abundant blessing over my life. A year that began with God asking me to start preaching for house church and discovering to the very marrow of me that if God calls you to do something He will also equip you with what you need. I didn’t want to run a house church and I certainly didn’t feel qualified to preach, but I was to discover that God qualifies those He calls and those He calls He equips. A year that provoked, pulled, pruned and pushed me beyond the limits of my own broken view of myself and caused healing to old wounds and revelation to my heart. The year my first book was edited and planning for the second one began. A year that brought about exponential growth in me; growth in who I’ve been made to be by the One who never makes mistakes and whose plans I’m learning to trust in, come what may. I’ve grown beyond measure from the start of 2019. My roots go deeper.
Which leads me to my word for this year, Abandoned. Wondering what this year will entail with a word like that and 2020 barely a few days old I sat down on my sofa to spend some time with God. To reflect on the previous year and see what, if anything, He wanted me to focus on for the New Year.
As the day passed, looking back over the areas where God had stretched me, I could see common threads developing. The moment last year God asked me to stop throwing my toys out of the pram when He asked me to do something I didn't want to or didn’t understand and instead respond to the request with joyful surrender. I was being asked to start leading by example, to model something to those around me, my family and house church. Entering into this New Year I could feel the ask of God on me to be fully abandoned to His will for me and through me. To abandon my own plans and desires for my life and lay them down for His. Last year was full of moments of choice; to press in and on, to surrender more, to choose to keep my eyes up and say moment by moment “Yes Lord, I believe, I hope, I trust in Your goodness in my life. Your hands around my life and Your grace throughout my life. Lead me on”.
A friend of mine had commented, on New Year’s day the first day of 2020, how 20/20 was the phrase used to describe someone with perfect vision. As my day on the sofa progressed this idea of 20/20 vision developed. What had been a throw away comment by my friend, grew roots in me. I could feel God talking to me about leading me in the ways of 20/20 perfect ‘God vision’, both for those around me as well as for myself. I began to have a sense of how being abandoned would require me to grow in how I saw and responded to the world around me, as well as developing a ‘God vision’ for who I was. To become fully abandoned would require me to experience freedom from fear of others, as well as freedom in how things needed to look or be, and this would require me to grow me in areas of trust as well as surrender.
Later that evening, whilst cooking dinner for the family, I began to sense that this time of reflection was to be extended into the next day, not something I’d planned or expected. My version for the next day looked like chilling with the family on the sofa, eating more of the remaining Christmas snacks whilst watching the last of the festive movies before the usual daily rhythms of parenting, home schooling and house church resumed. A day I was quite looking forward to, after my self enforced exile spent on the sofa upstairs. Yet as I chopped and stirred I could feel the gentle ask of God to come away, out of the house and on retreat with him. Seeing a picture of a friend’s pub in Walberswick, I asked God if this was where he wanted me to head to. If I’m honest, I’d been wanting an excuse to go back to their pub “The Anchor” ever since we spent my 50th birthday there as a family, so the thought that I might be going there the next day, did feel quite appealing. Suddenly the idea of not being able to eat more chocolate and vegetate didn’t seem so bad. It had felt easy to do the ask of God when it fitted into what I wanted to do. Less so when the resounding answer came back “No“, and this was a strong and definite “No”. Checking, several times, that God did actually want me to go away somewhere overnight with Him whilst asking family in the kitchen to weigh what I was sensing, and feeling an equally firm “Yes”. I asked God where he wanted me to head, if not Walberswick then geographically where? Immediately I saw another face, a friend who had moved from London a few years ago to live in Edinburgh. Walberswick may have caused me to consider the notion of going away for 24hrs as something quite appealing, the thought of heading to Scotland for 24hrs, however, felt just ridiculous. No matter which way I asked the question, the resounding answer was always “North”.
Dinner came and went. Text messages had clarified my friend already had plans for the next day, and by midnight I was no clearer on where I was heading other than north and a sense of water, hills and fire. That’s not a lot to grab hold of, when all you want to do is head to bed. By 1.30am I’d explored online most of the Northumbrian coastline, as well as Cumbria, and felt fairly certain that the area I was being asked to drive to was Loweswater in Cumbria. It was surrounded by hills, fells, three lakes and the nearby pub had rooms and an open fire in the main bar area. Tick, tick, tick. The only hesitation was that they were showing fully booked for every night the following week, with the exception of the next night which showed one single room free. I’d like to say I booked it without hesitation, but I didn't. I was tired. I knew it would be a massive drive up to Cumbria, only a few hours later, and the thought of sleeping in a single bed, something I’d not done in years, did not fill me with enthusiasm. After checking and re-checking their online booking system, in the hope that a minor miracle had taken place and a room with a double bed had suddenly become available, it hadn’t, I went to bed.
Waking early and having checked their website again in futile hope, I grabbed a few items of clothes and my toothbrush and headed downstairs for a pre-drive espresso. It wouldn’t be the first time I set off on a God adventure with plans still unfixed, so the thought of driving in the general direction of Cumbria and letting accommodation unfold didn’t unduly faze me and yet there was this nagging thing in the centre of me that I didn’t want to face. As I was finishing my coffee the rest of the family turned up in the kitchen to wave me off and see if, whilst they’d slept, plans had firmed up any. Even as I stood filling them in on my late night internet searches, I could feel myself being poked. My word for the year was abandoned and for the sake of a single bed I had resisted booking anything. Poke. Poke. This was not the way of being abandoned to God and I knew it. Taking a breath and finally giving in I dialled the pub’s number, confirmed my booking for later that day, told the family I loved them and would see them sometime the next day and grabbed my car keys. With the pub’s postcode plugged in to my sat-nav, I headed the car towards the North.
Most of the drive was unremarkable. Hour after hour of motorway unfolding before me. The midlands came and went, as did Liverpool and Manchester all accompanied by me singing along to my various worship CD’s I had in the car. Just before I reached the turning on the M6 that would take me off towards the most westerly part of the Lake District the rain began, and with the rain came a burst of sun and a rainbow. For Noah the rainbow was a sign of God’s promise that He would never cover the earth with water again. In that moment, seeing illuminated in front of me an arch of colour, my own thoughts about being on a possible wild goose chase dissipated.
The drive between the motorway and the pub took me from dual carriageway onto single lane, and then onto what was marked up as a gated track. As the road wound round and higher signs of houses and people reduced whilst the trees turned into a majestic impressive woodland. My route wound straight through the Whinlatter Forest Park, cutting across the fells and skirting to the side of Grisedale Pike. It was, quite simply, stunning. As I drove I could feel my heart filling up with the beauty all around me, tears welling up inside me, moved beyond words by the view unfolding before me. I felt known, seen and loved by God. Mountains, trees and water refresh my soul in equal measure and here I had them abundantly. Lakes could be spied down below as the road wound higher, causing me to laugh out loud as I told God how ridiculous He was in the lengths He would go to show me His great love for me.
The final part of the drive took me along a narrow sheep path with closed gate access before dropping down into a tiny lane and then turning left at a red telephone box informing me it contained a defibrillator, a handy if random piece of information, I finally reached my place of rest for the night. Literally in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere other than fells, lakes, low cloud and lots and lots of extreme nature. Wow!
The next 24 hours passed with fabulous food, the delights of a roaring wood fire, interesting conversations with people in the pub and a sense of wonder at being nestled away in Cumbria. To be honest there’s little more to add to this tale, other than an ever increasing sense of God’s abundant blessings over me.
The next morning, after an equally delightful breakfast, armed with advice on which footpaths to take to navigate round a few of the lakes before I turned the car in a general homebound direction. I walked through a stunning wood to stand at the head of Loweswater, remembering as I walked that only the day before I had written how I wanted to walk through the woods near to my home at some point in the coming week. I’d imagined our local woods. God had brought me to walk through these majestic woods. His vision for me and mine were worlds apart.
Lunch was taken in a tiny tea shop sat beside a farm on the edge of Buttermere Lake, a lake I had planned to walk around, despite the onset of the predicted rain. Whilst I watch the various walkers clothed in full waterproof gear head off, I ate the best soup I’ve ever tasted, Broccoli and Stilton, munched on a hunk of homemade bread and local farm made butter and then had the wonderful choice of not one or two homemade cakes but thirteen! Such a vast array of bounteous overflowing cake-ness! Who knew such abundance would be found in a teeny tiny teashop set in the middle of, well, the Cumbrian countryside? My heavenly Dad did, that’s who!
By the time I’d eaten my lunch the rains had lifted and I set off to walk round Buttermere, thankfully with no need for unpacked waterproof gear.
An hour and a half later I walked back to my car, marvelling at the beauty around me; the peace, serenity and the nearness of God infused in every mist shrouded fell, shaft of light on water, red squirrel hunting moment that had just passed. The light was fading and the cloud had turned to low hanging fog as I drove away and headed for the Honister Pass, with slight reservation in taking this route as it had been described to me in the Pub as a little tricky to navigate under normal conditions. Still, I reasoned, how hard could it be? Turns out extremely when you can’t see the road 5 feet in front of you and that road is single lane, with passing spots and switch back bends. Luckily a car had pulled out in front of me as I had set off, and sensing that they were locals who knew the roads I had stayed glued to their rear fog light. Matching them in speed as the road took hairpin bends into dense fog, I reasoned if there was a car coming in the opposite direction they would see it first and stop. Their red light became my guide, my pace setter, causing me to feel I was being given safe passage through the pass and onwards towards home and straight into more dense fog on the motorway. Fog that hampered my vision of the road, but allowed me to ponder the 24hours that had just passed. A time marked not with a thunderbolt God booming my name experience, but instead a slowed down moment full of His presence with me, feeling his lavish abundant blessings heaped upon a daughter He so clearly loved and knew in intricate detail.
I was returning home confident in how well my Heavenly Father knew me, what made me laugh, fed my soul and lifted my sprits. Cumbria may have felt like a random ridiculous ask. I had no way of knowing that in my willingness to say Yes, abandoning my will to His, I would gain so much, a worth far beyond measure, and this is just the start of 2020!
I wonder what might be your word for this year? Do you know? If not why don't you ask and once you have take a moment, sit, pause make space and wait. I promise you’ll sense a word arising and when you do, be encouraged that whatever understanding you have of that word now, by the end of this year you will have deepened and grown in this word.