Tag: perseverance

For the past 2 years, instead of making new year’s resolutions that I never end up keeping, I decided to choose a word to focus on throughout the year that I can incorporate into all areas of my life.

So, in 2020, I decided to choose the word “perseverance”. It wasn’t until a couple months later when the pandemic hit that I truly understood why I was given that word for the year. In His sovereignty, God knew it was going to take a lot of faith, patience, grace, and wisdom to help us get through it. And that he did.

I made the following pages to put in the front of my planner so that I would have a constant reminder of my word.

Then, for 2021, I chose the word, “believe”. I made this page to hang up on my bulletin board to have as a visual daily reminder that “I believe that God will be faithful to His plan for my life and fulfill His promises.” After the crazy year we had in 2020 that changed everything, I was still believing that God had a plan and a purpose for my life. I also had some dreams that I still wanted to accomplish and was believing God that the good work that He started in my life, He would finish.

Along with making planner pages and a visual reminder for my bulletin board, I also ordered these necklaces from the MYINTENT project.

That brings us to now. I knew I wanted to order another necklace with my word on it, but I still hadn’t chosen one. I had made a list of possible words that really spoke to me: joy, peace, hope, faithful, patience & love. But I just couldn’t decide. So, I found several Bible verses that had those key words in them and narrowed it down.

After some prayer, I ended up choosing Romans 12:12, which reads “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” (ESV)

One of the reasons I chose that verse is because for this past year I have been seeing what some people call “angel numbers”. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s basically a series of number sequences, such as 111, 333, and 1111, which are some of the most popular repeating numbers that I have been seeing, especially when I look up at the clock. But another one that stood out to me was 1212. It seems that every time I would look at the clock after noon, it would be exactly 12:12.

As someone who got involved in the New Age movement before I rededicated my life to Christ – which will be a testimony for another day – I was not comfortable with the term “angel numbers”. So, after doing some more research, I found out that there were other Christians who were also seeing repeating numbers as well but were finding corresponding Bible verses to find out what God was trying to say to them regarding any given situation. And as a professing Christian, it only makes sense that the Bible should be my go-to when trying to find out what He wants to say to me. Plus, there is a whole book of the Bible called “Numbers. So, they must be important. Right?

To give you an example of what I’m talking about, to me the numbers 111 & 1111 are both reminders to stay in faith.

Hebrews 11:1, "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (NIV)

Hebrews 11:11, "And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise." (NIV)

333 is another one that I see frequently and is a reminder to call on God in prayer whenever I am stressed about something.

Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." (NIV)

These are just a few examples that I have incorporated into my life whenever I would see a repeating number when looking at the clock or somewhere else. Which brings me back to the reason I chose Romans 12:12.

But that still doesn’t answer the question, “what is my word for 2022?” and it wasn’t until after I ordered my necklace, that I finally decided on a specific word, which is HOPE!!

I knew I had chosen the right word, because right after that God started confirming it to me over and over. That very morning, I had 3 devotionals in my email having to do with HOPE. Then, throughout the day, I would see various posts on social media with that word contained in it. So, I knew it was something that God not only wanted to instill into my life, but I believe that it is also something that He wants to encourage others with as well.

Just like my word BELIEVE for 2021, I still have HOPE for the future. I know that there is still so much uncertainty with everything that is going on in the world. But I believe that as long as I still have breath in my lungs, that my purpose has yet to be fulfilled and I will continue to make it my focus.

I started this blog with the intention of sharing my poetry and to use this platform to share my testimony of what God is doing in my life. My hope is to one day publish a book with my full testimony. I still haven’t figured out the details, since it’s still a work in progress. But it is definitely something that I’m aspiring to do in the future.

If you have made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. 🙂

In closing I just wanted to share a stack of books that I came across that I already owned – with the exception of the bottom book by Charles Stanley – which are all about HOPE & were more confirmations that I had chosen the right word. Some of them I had read before, but I decided that I wanted to reread them as part of my journey through HOPE this year. 🙂