Three Little Words to Power Your New Year

The Power of a Focus Word

I first learned of the practice in my Mops group. A few years ago, we were led as a group through the process of individually choosing a focus word for the new year. In the last handful of Januaries since then, I have continued the practice of entering the new year with a word of God’s and my collective choosing. Not a resolution, just a word. A focus. A landing place for the hope that I will grow more fully into my potential in the coming year. In the weeks surrounding the ball drop, I take extra care to pay attention, to notice intentionally, to journal and listen until I’ve found the word that resonates deep in my soul with where I’m at and where I want to go. This is my word.

Some years, my word resonates all year long, others, it is just the spark that gets me going or the challenge I need to enter into the much-needed refining process. In the beginning, there is always a sense of anticipation around how the word will take on meaning in the coming year as it goes from head to heart to penetrating soul. It is then that the word is no longer just a lofty idea, but God gives it the power to transform thought processes that inform actions–the inward becomes outward. Change is happening; transformation is taking place.

2020 was a year of a lot of transformation. With the world on fire, there was no way around the refining in it. Yes, I sometimes tried to skirt around it. But it was relentless. The shutdown that we thought would be over in weeks, turned into months and then an entire year. As my mom would say, we “best” learn something in the process: be changed. In some ways, this happened without our choice in the matter, but over time, welcomed: the hurry forced into slow, the hustle into an all-out stop, for example. After a stop is an opportunity to change directions. In being honest, the frustrations I experienced begged me to learn patience. The taking away begged that I not take things for granted. The suffering all around begged me to be grateful. The upending of plans asked me to hold them more loosely, let go of control, and take one day at a time.

As we all took a “bye, Felicia” attitude to 2020 and kicked it to the curb, I also noticed my desire to squeeze every ounce out of the refining that took place and carry it into my 2021. So, what could possibly be the one word that would sum up the “where I’m at and where I want to go” in a new year like no other?

Well, it isn’t one word, but three. It’s a phrase I was introduced to by a fellow Hope*Writer friend whose husband uses it in the form of an acronym at the end of his signature: a.i.g. It stands for “all is grace.” (You can read what she wrote about it here.)

As we all took a “bye, Felicia” attitude to 2020 and kicked it to the curb, I also noticed my desire to squeeze every ounce out of the refining that took place and carry it into my 2021.

For me in the year 2020, I was constantly reminded of the grace I lack. Each time I was faced with a frustration in a family of five who couldn’t escape our own four walls for weeks and months at a time, I was reminded that grace does not come naturally. It is a divine character trait I don’t possess without God’s intervention. Though I come up short in grace, God’s is overflowing. It is in all.

Fumbling through frustration is grace. Finding new gratitude is grace. Coming to the end of yourself is grace. For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is always something good waiting on the other side: increased patience, understanding, grace seeping through the cracks in you. I have received grace, and I am growing in learning how to give it out, how to live it out, how to speak its language…to myself, to my husband, to my children. In my thoughts and my actions. Grace is all and is in all. Spiritually, it must be the air I breathe, and yet these broken lungs struggle to inhale it deep.

As we came upon the new year and all the hype about it no longer being the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” 2020, I was perplexed at first. A number is just a number. Nothing magically changes when the ball drops and we have to start writing a one instead of a zero. It can’t make the pandemic disappear nor its lingering negative effects. But then I was again reminded of grace. How many times this year did I have a “bad day” with my emotions and went to bed thankful that tomorrow would bring a clean slate and an opportunity to do it differently? Many. How many times did I lay my head on my pillow mourning over the way I had yelled at the kids or lost my temper, only to wake to a fresh start? More times than I can count. New hope for a new day is a comforting reminder of God’s grace. It’s not the rhythm of the sun itself coming up over the horizon that brings the grace. It is rather a symbolic reminder of a deeper truth–like much of God’s creation was designed to be–of the grace that comes by way of Jesus Christ dying for our every sin. If a new day can bring hope and remind us of grace, 2020 turning into 2021 can remind us that all is grace. 

Over the last couple of days, I have found myself whispering the phrase when I feel anything but gracious. When I want to scream or pull out my hair or tell someone “I told you so,” I simply remember that by grace we got through 2020, and grace I’ll give in 2021. Happy New Year. All is grace.

For seeing more grace in 2021, click HERE.

POSTED BY

Jenna

Jenna Kruse is a teacher but not in a classroom. She loves to think outside the box and inside the Word and is daily in need of an attitude adjustment. She is a wife to Justin, a mother to three children ages 10, 8 and 5 and a mentor to teenagers and young adults. You can learn more about the heart behind her blog HERE.

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