2020 Word for the year

As I realized that my year to shine quickly began to close, I also realized that I hadn't even thought about a new word for 2020. I started to toy around with a few words and just came up empty. So, I prayed for God to reveal a word to help define, direct, and lead the coming year.

At first the phrase "let go" flashed across my mind. But a phrase just didn't seem right. I asked myself what word might capture the act of letting go, and as soon as I spoke it aloud, I knew God had given me my new word.

Release.

As a verb, it means to allow or enable to escape from confinement, to set free. Some synonyms and synonomous phrases included liberate, set loose, let out, allow to leave, unchain, unleash, liberate, let go. 

Looking back over 2019, I can say it held more darkness than any other year of the last decade other than walking through grief in 2010 over the failed adoption. I ended 2018 on a spiritual high, ready to celebrate all that God had in store for our marriage and family. Yet some of our darkest days as a couple loomed on the horizon, precisely at the time we'd already planned a big celebration. 2019 was a hard year. Period.

I won't go into detail about any of it because I'm still working through and sorting out a lot of the trials that truly blindsided us. I'm thankful for the buds of growth that I've seen come through those trials, I'm thankful for unexpected and unexplained financial stability, I'm thankful for employment, and I'm thankful to be teaching the grade that my heart wanted to teach (when even that threatened to be taken from me). I'm thankful for an amazing class of second graders that have already surpassed many of my expectations for them. I'm thankful that so far this current school year has been one of my best years ever as a teacher with a class of kids that absolutely love coming to school and working together as the "family" that we are in my classroom.

But despite all the good I see and am claiming, there's still a lot I need to release into my Father's hands. Hurt, anger, disappointment, unanswered questions, unmet expectations, changes in plans, etc. I need to open up my tight fist and let things go.

In addition to releasing the past, there's an 18 year old boy in my home awaiting his upcoming release from high school to college, from dependence to independence. My heart is fighting hard against this new word, yet knows the time is coming soon. I don't like any part of it. He's my little buddy, the one who's accompanied me on nearly every adventure over the last 18 years. I hate that his childhood has slipped away, yet he's everything I could have hoped for in an adult son. We raised him to be responsible, independent, caring, with a heart for the lost and a passion to serve. He's completely devoted to his church and serves at every opportunity that comes up. He's incredibly independent and carefully plans out every minute of his time between his church friends and activities, his job, his truck, and his family. He manages his money carefully and lives frugally to stretch every dollar. He's currently with the young adult group (one of only 8 who are still high schoolers) in Georgia at the Passion Conference, and he's eagerly awaiting his first international mission trip (without his family) to South Africa this July, hoping he might also have the chance this summer to return to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to serve the families in the valley. After that, he'll be driving his truck off to Dallas Baptist University to start his freshman year as a college student. He's a natural born leader, very confident in who he is. Ready for release, whether I'm ready or not.

I know from experience that the act of releasing something is freeing and liberating to the soul. I also know that God asks us to open up our grip from whatever it is that we're white-knuckling and release it so He can fill our hands with something greater. But releasing my first-born son is not going to be easy on this mama's heart.

Yet I began the last decade learning to let go of two children, and God filled my open, empty hands with more blessing than I ever could have seen coming through that act of release. I'm looking forward to seeing what God has for my son and our family in this new decade to come as I learn to release what is no longer mine to hold onto.

2020. Graduation year. It always seemed so far away, yet here it is. As reluctant as I am to show emotion, you might just catch a few tears on my cheeks at unexpected times over the course of this year.