Word of the Year

Ter from With An Angel On My Shoulders posted about having a "Word of the Year". Hers is phenomenal and inspiring. Please check it out if you have a chance.

I got to wondering what my "word of the year" is for 2010. I mean a word that I could live by. A word that defines this coming year. Preferably a word that means better things are to come. But I know from experience that setting expectations can often be dangerous and disappointing. Turning back the clock a year, it would have been impossible to accurately define it. If I had had the chance to define it, it might have been "change". I certainly knew things in my world would change with our first baby on the way, but I had no idea just how drastically I would be changing. So before I set out to define this year, I must take a few steps back.

While my world was shot to pieces last year, most experiences that occurred in 2009 would have to be analyzed before being ruled out as pure heartbreak.

For example my daughter dying. Tragic, yes but what an experience to get to be her mother!

And what about all those things that I so closely associate with her?

the 5th - day she was born
the 18th - day she died
the 20th - memorial service

and the #5... this number just popped up everywhere with her. It wasn't until after she died that I realized her first and middle name had five letters in them. And by one minute she was born on 5-5-09. Crazy stuff. Little stuff, but crazy.

and the color fuchsia... and ponies... and small birds... and well the list could just go on forever.

All these crazy little things are horrible reminders of what once was. I could drive myself crazy because these are everyday things that just cannot be naturally avoided. In the very beginning it was overwhelming just how many reminders there were of her. I didn't mind them, but I had no idea how I would be able to live and breathe and exist without her... for the rest of my life.

As I thought about what word could best define this past year, it would have to be perspective. I couldn't live another moment if I couldn't believe she truly truly gained from my loss.

She gained an eternity away from sin and this world to be with her Creator.

She gained.

And when these numbers and dates come up, and my mind is too weak to think rationally, perspective is what has grounded me again. I have to remember what I did have, what I do have and what I will one day have again. Of course keeping perspective is a whole other story...

but perspective has been my mainstay. When I couldn't keep it for myself, my husband has been right there to help me. And in those moments when it hurt too much to even breathe without her, perspective dried my tears and often helped me put the face on I was too weak to mask. Perspective helped me to start living again, or to even think about living again.

And with the right perspective I have so desperately needed in 2009, I can claim hope as my word of this year. I cannot define this year with a much broader scope, but to narrow it down for me is dangerous. I learned to hope against hope with Jenna, but after she died my hope seemed meager and desolate. Perspective carried me when hope failed me. But hoping is not seeing things happen, it is believing that they will happen.

I hope more than ever for the Lord's return.
I hope to please the Lord with my life.
I hope for all the broken hearts of so many of my friends here in this community.
I hope for a healthy, screaming baby this time.
I hope for so much more.

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

Romans 8:24

(charity) Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

I Corinthians 13:7

And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: Hebrews 6:11

And as Ter asked us on her blog, what is your word of the year?