becoming.

Becoming. Not only is it my favorite word, but this year, becoming has taken hold of my heart and worked its way into my soul and my story. For yesterdays post, I wrote about the importance of asking questions of the year behind us and the year head. One of the questions being, what would you the title of the year 2011?

Of course, my go-to answer was becoming. But I wanted to be thoughtful and honest in thinking about this past year. What has truly been at the heart of 2011? How does this year fit into the bigger story that I'm living? As I was driving home from babysitting earlier tonight, I thought back to previous years and how this year would fit into the storybook of my life. Recent years, I think, would be titled Decisions. Lost & Wandering. Jump. 

It makes sense to me that the next chapter would be Becoming. The more I thought about it on the drive home, the more it made sense. Yes, becoming was my quick and easy answer, but it is also the right answer, the very best way to title the year 2011.

I don't know if you're a New-Year's-Resolution-making type of person, but a few years ago I stopped, as suggested by my friend Johanna. Instead, I choose one word - or in the case of this year, a few words - to focus on throughout the year. To me, this makes more sense that compiling a lengthy list of self-improvement projects that inevitably fail (in turn making me feel worse about myself than when I started). Instead, I write my word (or words) on post-its and scribble them in the pages of my journals. I continually come back to them throughout the year. They are words that I hope and pray will be lived and felt and experienced to the full throughout the year, only to become a routine part of my life once the year ends. The past few years my words have been pursue and seek experience. This year I was ambitious and chose four words. No, scratch that. Five.

In January of 2011, no doubt on a miserably cold day lounging in bed, I scribbled the words becoming, transformation, dependence, surrender, and heal in my journal. I prayed, sought after, and attempted to live each of these words this year.

Definitely, there are times in the past year where these words have been felt and experienced and lived. Healing came in my brief stint of counseling last winter and in a quiet, late night in Rome writing an email for closure on long-harbored bitterness. Dependence felt last winter during my first months as a Young Life leader, when the only words out of my mouth were, I can't do this, why me, and I'm so overwhelmed. Dependence felt in the daily and hourly prayers during those early months for His strength to guide my steps and use this new role for His glory. Surrender felt every day of summer staff, Mark 8:35 constantly on my heart. Transformation seen in retrospect, in looking back at where I was a year ago to where I am today, a new creation. Becoming as a theme throughout the year; the idea that we're made new and always being made new. Desiring to become a person who experiences deep and rich life with God, constantly coming back to the question, who am I becoming?

When I think about the year in retrospect, these five words are truly at the heart of 2011. They were words felt at very different times and in very different places and certainly not all at one time and absolutely not all 365 days of the year. I don't want to sit here and fool you into thinking that it's been easy or fun the whole time, or that I've kept a positive spirit the entire time. I can look back now and see how the good, the bad, and the ugly have somehow connected back to these five words. And certainly, none of that is my own doing. Yes, I set out with the intention to really live these words this year, but that would not have been possible on my own strength. I can't become something more on my own. I can't transform on my own. I can't heal on my own. These words have only been possible because we serve a loving and gracious God, a God who wants us to be close to Him. A God who heals, who brings peace, who comforts. A God who, when we pray earnest prayers and desire to grow close to Him, answers tenfold. I come back to the truth that I don't deserve to have the words be a part of my story, but God loves me more than that.

As this year ends, and 2012 quickly approaches, I pray that becoming, transformation, dependence, surrender, and healing don't stop here. I don't want 2011 to be marked by these words, I want my life to be marked by these words.


What would you title 2011? What words have marked your year? What words would you like to live, experience, and feel in 2012?