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

 

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