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January is a great month, even though it’s winter here in Minnesota. I love New Years Eve, we celebrate four birthdays in our family and I choose my word for the year. I love this time of wintering for reflection, rest and even occasional winter activities. Totally irrelevant but I used to dream of moving south. But I’ve realized I love the change of seasons, I enjoy snow for a few months and I think I’d hate the heat of the south more than the cold of winter. Anyways, I digress.
While on a little getaway with my hubby at the end of December, I had an idea of what my word might be. Usually, I like to sit with it for a bit before committing. After doing that, I couldn’t quite pull the trigger on it. I wrote these things down when I was processing this past year and looking ahead to 2026, they have been floating around in my heart and mind for a bit.
More beauty – classic, elegant style but still fun. It feels like elegance, beauty and a classic style are dying in architecture, clothing and design in general.
Authentic – my home, my style, my clothes, my opinions are mine. Own it. Do what you love! Too much time spent worrying about other people and what they are thinking of me, chances are, they aren’t. Be YOU!
More fun and play! Be curious, stay playful! Growing old is optional. Just because I’m aging doesn’t mean the fun stops!
More encouragement less discouragement, grumbling or complaining with my words. I am blessed!!! Let my words bring life to myself, to others and above all, honor God.
Contentment – not always needing to be busy or doing something. It’s ok to just be.
Originally, I thought my word was Savor. Which I’ve had on my potential words list for years. But it felt too slow, I wanted more energy behind my word. I loved the thought of whimsy, it’s such a fun word and I’m looking for more fun. After a lot of digging, reading definitions, synonyms and more, I even used the dumb ChatGTP or whatever it’s called. Now, I don’t love the idea of AI but I finally caved when I was trying to find a word that encompassed my list above. More about this in a minute.
And even after this, I googled, searched, prayed and fought this dang word. It’s too close to joy. Is that really my word? But here it is. It’s my word for this year. Call me crazy. 😉
Delight – a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; to give someone great pleasure or satisfaction.
What I love about this word is that there is a give and take. Honestly, I hope that when I look back on 2026, it’s me giving more delight than taking. I hope that when people are with me,they leave feeling that it was pleasant or enjoyable to spend their time with me.
Biblically delight is also about being soft, pliable and to bend towards a person or object (hebrew word hepes)
For 2026, I’d really love to memorize more scripture and do a deeper dive on some books of the Bible. I absolutely love doing the Bible Recap but sometimes I wish we had more time to get a deeper dive on scripture. Who knows, maybe some time I’ll do the challenge where you read the entire Bible in a month! Along with my word for the year I usually pick a scripture to go with it. Delight is mentioned in the Bible a lot so there are a lot of verses to choose from. While chatting with my friend the other day she reminded me that my life verse has the word delight in it.
Now back to the Chat thing. I can never remember if it’s ChatGTP or ChatGPT? Don’t bother answering, my kids do all the time and I ignore it. I don’t want to know it’s real name. Anyways. It gave me all kinds of cool stuff, I hate to admit it. Then I asked about delight from a biblical aspect and here is where it really knocked my socks off or shall I say, where it really delighted me.
It created a weekly scripture with delight focus and then I was able to download it into my notes app. So that’s probably my first and last time using Chat. It was helpful but it also creeps me out. Anyone else?
One thing that I have become more excited about with my word is that it reminds me of Joie de vivre or Joy of Living. Delighting in life. Simple pleasures. Gratitude. Contentment. Beauty. Authenticity. Here’s to a year of Delight.
