A Word for the Year

I have enjoyed having a “word for the year” for the last several years. This is different than making resolutions, and goals and building up my expectations for what I am going to do. This January or even late December habit has been an asking of the Lord, “show me a WORD from your word for me this coming year.“
 
2020 was the year for TRUST and the verse Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” was the one for me this past year!
 
As we went through transition from Zambia to Seattle to our home here at 832 Olive Drive in Yorktown, I found many places to say, “I must trust the Lord”! I often thought I need to do this or that so we will be in the right place at the right time. I’m sure I need to remind and nag or cajole my husband, David, or family, so this thing really happens.
 
We traveled in an “older van” from Seattle to Newport News on the cusp of the wave of COVID as it hit the USA! At every stop we were loved on by supporters, friends and family – if I had underlying fears about getting or spreading the virus the Lord reminded me to Trust Him.
 
As we found out our travels to Zambia were not going to happen in April the Lord whispered to me “I know you would love to go…but TRUST me I have rest, time for grieving, and place for you to meet me in Albuquerque! Slow down and look at me, Sally. My decrees are very trustworthy! (Ps 93:5a)

God is so gracious to me, his daughter! I need lots of reminding about who He is! Ps. 37:5 reminded me… “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and He will act.” So too is his promise for the future, “Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.” (Proverbs 16:20)
 
As the days of 2020 turned into 2021 the Lord revealed that in these times of waiting to get back to “normal” He has blessed me with more time to pray, read the Word, and enjoy being around the house! He has given me a discovery of delights to read and look pictures to look at from long ago. More recently  (below) I have enjoyed poems like this one from Alexander McCall Smith (a favorite Author). This poem puts into words much of my experience over these recent months of COVID.

God has mercifully given me HOPE as my focus for 2021!
Ps. 131:3 “O Israel (Sally) HOPE in the Lord from NOW and forevermore.
 
 
In a time of distance
By Alex McCall Smith

The unexpected always happens in the way
The unexpected has always occurred:
While we are doing something else,
While we are thinking of altogether
Different things — matters that events
Then show to be every bit as unimportant
As our human concerns so often are;
And then, with the unexpected upon us,
We look at one another with a sort of surprise;
How could things possibly turn out this way
When we are so competent, so pleased
With the elaborate systems we’ve created --
Networks and satellites, intelligent machines,
Pills for every eventuality — except this one?

And so we turn again to face one another
And discover those things
We had almost forgotten,
But that, mercifully, are still there:
Love and friendship, not just for those
To whom we are closest, but also for those
Whom we do not know and of whom
Perhaps we have in the past been frightened;
The words brother and sister, powerful still,
Are brought out, dusted down,
Found to be still capable of expressing
What we feel for others, that precise concern;
Joined together in adversity
We discover things we had put aside:
Old board games with obscure rules,
Books we had been meaning to read,
Letters we had intended to write,
Things we had thought we might say
But for which we never found the time;
And from these discoveries of self, of time,
There comes a new realisation
That we have been in too much of hurry,
That we have misused our fragile world,
That we have forgotten the claims of others
Who have been left behind;
We find that out in our seclusion,
In our silence; we commit ourselves afresh,
We look for a few bars of song 
That we used to sing together,
A long time ago; we give what we can,
We wait, knowing that when this is over
A lot of us — not all perhaps — but most,
Will be slightly different people,
And our world, s, its beauty revealed afresh.

Author

Sally Lott has lived the last 21 years with her husband, David, in Botswana and Zambia Africa as Global Ministry Partners with PCC. They attended PCC from ’85 to ’98 before leaving for Africa. Sally and Dave have three grown children who she homeschooled while on the field in Africa. Now that she and Dave are off the field, she loves working with global partner member care and seeing the Father at work in those around her.