My 2018 Word of the Year: Faith
Happy new year, babes! 🎉 I'm hoping you all had a fun and safe time celebrating the new year. Angel and I spent a quiet night at home and then welcomed the new year by making the most noise in our apartment complex (sorry neighbors!).
I am so excited for 2018! The end of 2017 took a toll on my mental and physical health and i'm so ready to start fresh. Instead of setting new year's resolutions, I'm choosing one word to focus on for the entire year. I first heard about One Little Word on Katie the Planner's blog. You can learn more about OLW on the creator's, Ali Edwards, blog here.
While brainstorming my word of the year, I kept coming back to who I was during 2017's trials — anxious, controlling, doubtful, fearful — and I prayed for a word that would help me release all of these negative personalities in 2018. The word faith kept popping up in my thoughts and prayers and it scared me that God wanted me to focus on this word in 2018.
I'm a firm believer in what you ask for, God will test you (like ... if you pray for patience, God will test your patience type of thing), but if I really want to conquer my anxiety, control, doubt, and fear, I need to have faith. (One of my makeup inspirations, Hrush Achemyan, explained faith best after going through a health crisis last year).
Being that I'm the type of person that will analyze something until my brain hurts, I asked God to help me understand why He wanted me to focus on the word faith. Then one night while drafting this post, it became clear; I was "fake" content with where my life was at in 2017 that I felt like I no longer needed God.
When I dug deeper as to why I was feeling so "content", I remembered that I was glorifying busy so hard because being busy equaled success. But instead, busy brought me (lots of) stress. I tried to control every thing around me and when I failed (which was 100% of the time) my anxiety and anger skyrocketed. Yeah ... I don't want to be 2017 Jessika anymore.
That said, in 2018 I want to:
Renew my faith in God by making time to study His word, pray, and go to church.
Build faith in myself because I often doubt myself and my ideas.
Have faith in being able to pay off my debts.
Have faith in my relationships.
Have faith that I can lose weight and get fit.
These are just some of the ways I plan on practicing my word in 2018. I'd really like to pick up journaling as a way to reflect on my faith-filled journey and hope to share a few snippets with you here. If you've reached the end of this post, thanks for reading.
Do you practice One Little Word? What's your 2018 word of the year? Share in the comments below. ↓