Happy 2014! I’d planned on writing about 2013 and new years resolutions and whatnot a few days ago… but I’ve just been so busy being so lazy. I know when school starts back Monday (yay/boo!), life will be kicked into high flipping gear, so I’m soaking up the lazy days while I still have them. Between classes, work, PKS, Cozumel meetings and fundraising… it’s gonna be a fun, crazy busy semester.
    2013 was a pretty good year, if I say so myself. The whole not doing a long messy new year’s resolution to try (and subsequently give up on 3 months later) was a good idea. I didn’t feel like I had something I had to add to my to-do list.
I did, however, adopt a word a la the “My One Word” concept. (confession: still haven’t read the actual book about this. Gotta get a move on that).

   The “word” I chose for last year was beautiful.  I focused on changing my world using the word beautiful:  seeing myself as beautiful, understanding what the word beautiful means to myself and the world around me, learning how to love myself and see myself as God sees me.
It was one of those things that God apparently knew I needed, because He kept sending me things along the way to help me understand it better.

Things like Cozumel, where the love of a child was pure and beautiful and heartbreakingly powerful. I cannot wait to go back to where my heart feels whole in March! Cozumel helped me see myself differently: through the eyes of a child.

A video that just happened to go viral in the midst of trying to understand how I could ever feel beautiful. God is funny sometimes.

A wonderful book that is still helping me work through this whole mess. It’s funny how the book transitions to talking about self esteem and beauty to talking about the word I’ve decided to work on this year. (More on that later…)

   God used plenty of other things to help me, too: other books, quotes and scripture, music… when I said I wanted to do this, it was as if God just put everything in my lap that I needed to succeed in it. He’s good like that.

   Instead of focusing on a list of things to do, I focused on a word to be, a thought to believe in. I think, for the most part, I was successful.
    Do I always see myself as beautiful? More and more each day. It’s a take-it-day-by-day kind of thing. For now. Am I understanding what beauty is and means? Yes. I’m starting to get it more and more, and am starting to understand it for myself. That’s a beautiful thing in itself.

For me, it’s been a whole thought transformation. I’m well on my way, though. At least I think I am.

  My one word for 2014 was pretty much set awhile back. It’s been popping up so much in my life, it’s as if God is saying, “are you listening NOW, child?!?”
    So, my word for 2014 is love. I want to focus one loving myself (a lot more), loving others more deeply, loving God more wholeheartedly.

  But I also want to focus on letting people love me. Letting people in more. Being vulnerable is one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced, and one of the things I hardly ever let myself be.  Loving myself has to include letting others love me and walk by my side-not from a distance as I’m accustomed to.
  On a similar note, the word love to me includes not only loving God, but letting God love me. Like letting people in is a struggle, letting God in sometimes is too. I know that He knows everything, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to pretend that I’m okay on my own. But I’m not.
I’ve mentioned in the past about I’m a little apprehensive about love in general, but especially when it comes to love and God. The idea of letting God love me, romance me… just plain freaks me out.

    Letting anyone love me has always been nerve-wracking. It’s a trust thing… I’m always afraid of when the rug’s gonna be pulled from under me. If I’m gonna say or do something wrong… the what ifs eat at my brain enough to close myself off from everyone. It’s a lonely place. And it’s got to stop.  Living like that is just plain hard.

   Last year I said beautiful was my “work in progress” for the year. NOT my resolution. It was something to strive to be, something to believe in for the year and beyond. The same rings true this year.