If you are new around here, you probably don’t know that each year I like to choose a word that will be my overall focus for the year. I was originally inspired by Ali Edwards several years ago and love all of the amazing things she does to keep that One Little Word tradition going.

Near the end of 2021, I began searching in earnest for my new 2022 word. I had a few on a short list, but none of them felt like “the one,” so I waited. Then one morning I awoke determined to make some progress toward my new word. I wanted to shorten the list, at least make some progress somehow. So that morning I prayed very specifically for direction. Then I began my regular morning routine. And this quote came from what I read that very morning:

“I speak of hope in Christ not as wishful thinking. Instead, I speak of hope as an expectation that will be realized. Such hope is essential to overcoming adversity, fostering spiritual resilience and strength, and coming to know that we are His children, who belong to His family.” (Mic drop, President Ballard!)

This quote really struck me. Because like so many of my other words when I first thought of them, they came across as too small or not what I thought I needed. Until I really gave them consideration. And as I thought more and more about this word, the more I realized that after a year of growing my faith, hope was exactly what needed to come next!

Hope.

And I’ll admit, too, that after last year and the experiences I had with growing faith, I cringed thinking of all of the ways I might need to cling to hope this year and I wondered if I could avoid potential heartache and challenges if I chose another word! But life doesn’t really work that way, does it? What I can appreciate is that if I am going to need an added measure of hope this year, at least I will be prepared!

And after two years of living in a pandemic and seeing all of the ways our world has changed, I would argue that we all need hope! We need hope that the world will come out of this strange funk that it’s in!

This morning it was gloomy and rainy. I walked my younger kids to school in the rain because it seemed deceptively like a light drizzle and I thought we’d be fine. I came home soaked! I tried to convince my older boys that if they rode their bikes in the rain, they too would be soaked by the time they got to school. They insisted on riding their bikes, but they did add an additional jacket to protect themselves from the rain. One of my boys looked up through a window in our family room and pronounced confidently, “The sun is coming out!” I laughed. The sky was still full of clouds–not a speck of blue in the sky–and there was not one ray of sunlight poking through. But his statement stayed with me. In the next 10 minutes or so, the sun really did come out. And I thought more about what my son had said. “The sun is coming out!” I think having hope is believing that the sun will come out even when it feels like the rain and gloom will stay indefinitely.

All too often I have thought of hope as something with a bit of uncertainty in it. Like arriving at the end of a long checkout line thinking, “I hope this won’t take too long…” or seeing an ambulance rushing by with lights flashing and thinking, “I hope they’re OK.” There is a place for those well wishes. But they are more wishes than the sort of hope I want to focus on this year. I want to establish a confident expectation that comes from the faith I have grown (and continue to grow), knowing that there is One who keeps His promises. And if I put my trust in Him, I will never regret it. That sort of hope brings immense joy.

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