I have this picture in my head of the girl I want to be. Words that describe her are cozy, confident, spunky, charming, honest, soft, comforting, sweet, perceptive, kind, fierce, smart. The kind of girl that places her hand on your forearm and says she’s honestly thankful to have you as a friend. Who is not afraid to go all mama bear if when necessary. A girl who doesn’t stop tears that fall at inopportune times. Who speaks her peace gracefully, making people feel welcome in her presence, offering hospitality in & out of her home.
When I’ve been working for too long, and The Boy walks {’cause he walks everywhere now} over and slams my laptop shut, I want to bend to him and play.
When Husby gives me a hug or a kiss, I want to linger in it for more than a moment.
If an email comes across my box, I want to reply quickly and with heart, pouring a little blessing into the person who has graced my screen.
I want to call my friends, even if it’s been months between phone time. To ask them how life is, inquire on their hearts and marriages. To love them from miles & miles away.
Cozy is my favorite way to be. I need to give in to cozy, choosing to power down the electronic things and hold a book in front of a real fire in the fireplace. Choose to go to bed early rather than staying up to get one more thing done. Choose to make a meal or latte in my kitchen rather than the convenience of a drive-thru.
My heart bleeds creating. In the kitchen, with paper and glitter, in decorating my home, and in this space. I need to give in to these projects and things that make my heart full.
My body grew life twice and gave birth once. I’ve earned its softness, the stripes on my belly, prayed for the width of my hips. It’s time to care well for it, healing still from a child who burst from me in one push. While embracing the new body, I want to be fierce enough to treat it well, knowing I deserve that and more-so does the One who created it.
These things are the ones I want to bend to, giving into the softness that is in me. My OneWord for 2013 – the one I will choose to focus on each day – is soft.
Please don’t mistake – soft doesn’t mean doormat. To me, soft means releasing myself into being the girl I described in the top words, smoothing out the edges that I’ve allowed to become hard. I’ve fought against myself for some time now, inviting hardness and even harshness to enter and lodge in my heart, and I’ve had it. I’m done. I want my choices to be soft, to stop fighting against it.
So bear with me as I ask God to be sandpaper, roughing up my corners and smoothing out the hard places. I’m praying soft in 2013.
Read the other words that have shaped my years:
2014: welcome
2015: embrace
2016: reclaim
Encouragement straight to your inbox
I'd love to meet you over a picket fence in our backyards with a cup of coffee and a good story. We'd talk real life, real motherhood, and real encouragement.
Add your email below to get spam-free encouragement in your inbox. I share about the extraordinary ordinary found in mothering. Join me at the fence? I'll send you an email when blog posts come out, and occasional other updates. By the way, you can read my privacy policy here: annarendell.com/privacy.
I think this describes you now, or at least the lovely person I spent time with at BlogHer. Wishes to you for a very happy new year.
I love this. Beautifully written!
Beautiful. I think you’re already there, but it’s in the acceptance and the doing that needs to be smoothed out. It’s such a perfect fit.
For me, the one word that comes over and over to me this year is growth. I’m still exploring how that’s to be, but I feel very strongly that it’s accurate.
Like some of the others said, friend, I have to say that you are so many of those words you used, if not all of them. I pray your new year will bring you everything you hope and wish for, and that it will bring us together with our boys more often.
Love the word and the way it filters your view….I too would strive to be a friend who picks up the phone to say hi, nothing more than to chat. What a beautiful word to focus on!
LOVE soft. LOVE IT.
I love it! Great choice – perfect for you!
Very eloquent description of the person we should all strive to be. Best wishes for a soft and blessed 2013. You are a blessing to many and I’m glad we became Twitter pals and got to meet last year.
~~Janet aka @kyklips
Beautiful. I love it. Being soft in our hard world is a challenge and not for the weak. I think it takes a strong and determined woman to be soft.
This is the first year I’m participating in this one word thing and I’m excited.
I’m excited to see where “soft” takes you!
I LOVE it. It’s you and you can do it.
you put into words beautifully how I think most if not all women feel at one time or another…thank you Anna…
YES! I pray that over you with boldness.
Oh… I think this might possibly be one of the very best ONE WORDs I’ve heard yet. I love seeing someone take word like ‘soft’, that different than all the others, and give it such life!
I made it almost through the end of your post before the tears came, but… oh… “I’ve fought against myself for some time now”… how that resonated with me. This “soft” journey or yours and “permission” journey of mine… I think they might just be side by side… parallel paths headed in the same direction. Can’t wait to see you become “Soft”. Beautiful.
How did you start being more soft? Can you give me examples of how to restore tenderness and gentleness into your parenting? I fear I have killed the childlike spirit of wonder and joy and unconscious freedom in my dear little 4 year old boy. I have demanded that he be tough and hard and grow up too fast. I am hoping and praying it’s not too late to reverse the trend. Please give me hope and ideas! Thank you.