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Well friends, if you remember, I posted last week about my word for 2025. It was good but I just wasn’t 100% sure it was my word. I was trying to force it, but it never felt settled, I never felt excited about it, and I kept thinking that there was another word, but I couldn’t figure it out. I had a list of words on my phone and many of them were connected but nothing was jumping out at me.
Abide, Nourish, Becoming, Rooted, Fruitful, Found, Enrich, Expand, Seek, Sow, Grow, Faithful, Cultivate, Authentic. I also kept coming across John 15 – Jesus is the true vine.
Last week while reading my bible I did some journaling and listed two areas that I was looking to grow in this year. One of the questions I asked was what is my purpose for 2025? Since moving in 2020, life feels like it has been one transition after another. If you’ve been around the blog long, you know that I’ve had a hard time loving this home we are in, and I often miss our old home. When we first moved in, we told our neighbors we will be here for 2-7 years. So even when we moved in, I was hoping we wouldn’t be here long. In May of 2022, I blogged about roots and hanging photos in our home yet in August of 2022 I wrote a blog post about looking at real estate and wanting to move but we decided we needed to stay in our current home. All over these blog posts I see reminders of planting, roots, abiding, joy, embracing and all these words that the Lord has planted in my heart the past few years. Tears are flowing as I am so thankful for the faithfulness of God. That he used this blog as a place for me to journal this journey the past few years. The struggle I have with putting down those roots. In his kindness, he keeps showing me that the planting, growing and gardening is where joy is found. To embrace where He has our family for this season and that sometimes you just need to get your hands dirty and see what grows.
All this to say, my word for 2025 is
It perfectly encapsulates all the words I had written down for this year. Definitely one of my more unconventional words I’ve had but I absolutely love it! One night while I was having a therapy/cry session with my husband, he spoke all these beautiful words to me but the one line I remember the most was that I was a flower planted in a garden. My purpose for 2025 is the same as the past few years, to keep abiding right where I am, right where God planted me for this season and be fruitful.
I wrote this last week in my original blog post for my word and it still applies.
It feels like I have spent the past few years figuring out my health and how to parent adult kids. Then I became a mother-in-law, and a Mimi in a short amount of time. There has been a definite shift in who I was 5 years ago to now. Some of that is natural growth and some of it is mid-life. My kids are mostly grown up and it won’t be too long before the last baby leaves the nest. I am coming out of my life revolves around my kids and their schedules phase and into the I don’t know what to call it stage. No, I am not having a mid-life crisis. But I am experiencing what is a completely normal phase of life, shifting the focus more and more towards the new season approaching. In ways, I view this time as the preparation before you plant your garden. You know spring is coming so you are preparing the soil, making sure you have fertilizer and the right tools so your garden can be a success. I feel like I’ve been gardening for a while now, I’ve had some awesome crops and some things that didn’t grow like I expected. Along the way, I’ve done things to help my garden grow but my soil is feeling a little drained of nutrients. It’s time to find more things that I enjoy doing and being creative again. My husband and I are looking forward to what life will be like not revolving around a school or sports schedule. A definite focus for us is finding more community and things to do together this year as we find ourselves with more time on our hands. We have two years before our last baby graduate’s high school. I am definitely embracing these last two years while still looking ahead at the next season.
And honestly, I just probably need to go back and re-read my blog posts. I originally wrote this in May 2020 and reflected on it in April 2022.
May 2020 -So, while we grieve all the wonderful memories, our neighborhood and even our home, I know that God has good things planned for us in our new city, neighborhood and home.
We trust you to provide again, that you have gone before us and our new home and community may be different, but it will still be good.
April 2022 – Today I sit here and reflect on just how true those words have been for us since I first wrote that post almost two years ago. God has good things for us here too. Leaving our home and neighborhood that we loved didn’t mean we were leaving God’s goodness and purposes for us behind and wandering into some unknown. It also didn’t mean we were moving to lesser things either. God has plans and purposes for us, always, no matter where we are. In fact, He prepared those for us before we even knew we were moving. Sometimes being uprooted and replanted is confusing and maybe even painful. But God wastes nothing. Now we enter a new season, with plans and purposes ready and waiting for us.
Today I reflect on my own words again, five years later. God is in this season with plans and purposes ready for us. Always.
So here’s to another year in the garden. Planting, watering, weeding, nourishing, enriching, cultivating, harvesting and enjoying the fruits of our labor and whatever grows this year. We might have a failure or two but I’m excited to see what the Gardener does with my (word for 2025) garden.
John 15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be[a] my disciples.9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
