I always choose a word for the new year. I pray about this word for several weeks before settling on it. Words make up stories. And stories make up the fabric of our lives. Last year my word was “Hope.”

So many things I hoped for in 2016, healing. Peace. A bountiful harvest. A run of hard years had hit us. Honestly, I was dreading another tough year and needed hope so badly. On New Year’s Day 2016, I sat in our living room with tears streaming down my face. On top of all the hardships, Scott was making me give up my writing dream. At least the way I’d imagined my writing dream would happen. “You don’t need a literary agent, and you don’t need to be a Christian writer,” Scott said as I sat there and cried. “You just need to write the stories God has given you and we’ll put them out there for people to read. If people don’t like your books, then we’ll finally know.”

If you had told me twelve months ago, I’d publish two historical romance novels in 2016, I would have laughed. If you had said people would like these books, and ask me to write more of them, I’d have laughed even harder. Somewhere along the line, I’d lost confidence not just in myself, but in the goodness of my God. Don’t get me wrong, I know God is good, but when you go through a string of bad things, really hard, gut-wrenching things, it can knock the wind out of you for awhile.

There is a season for everything under heaven. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4. I’d spent the past several years doing a lot of weeping, but in 2016, I danced. Hard dancing. The kind of dancing that makes sweat run down your back and makes you forget you’re missing a chunk of your leg. “Are you sure you’re okay,” my daughters kept asking me at Scott’s sister’s 50th birthday party in downtown San Francisco as we danced the night away. “Does your leg hurt? Do you need to sit down? Are you really okay?”

“I’m not sitting down,” I told Cami, cradling her rosy cheeks, and looking square into her worried 25 year old eyes. “My leg is fine. I’m alive. You’re alive. Let’s just keep dancing!”

After melanoma in my leg, then a breakdown in the hospital, and then worst of all, burying our beloved 14 year old Anna in a cemetery of whispering pines that sounded like the saints crying, I just wanted to dance the hurt away.

In 2015 when Anna died, I’d chosen the word Rejoice. I really thought that would be my year of rejoicing, and this was my verse: Romans 12:15: Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Here are my exact words from my New Year’s blog post two years ago:

“I hope I can rejoice with you in 2015, but I also promise to weep with you if you weep. The Bible says, You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8. 

Can you imagine your bottle of tears in the hand of God? Him turning your tears into a story? To bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. You will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:3.

God himself is writing a book about your tears. Your struggle is not wasted. Your cocoon of pain creates your wings. We all have a story. Your story matters to God. And it matters to others.

Today when we walked in our ravine looking for rocks to write our words on for 2017, Scott wrote this unfamiliar term. “It means slave,” he said, using my iPhone to figure out how to spell the Greek word, “because I am a slave to Christ.”

“Why don’t you just write Slave?” I asked, “If that’s what your word means.”

“Because I like Dew-loss,” Scott said. This is how the Greek word for slave is pronounced. It’s two syllables and Scott pronounces each syllable like this: Dewwww-losssss. I wish you could hear him say it. Spoken this way, it holds so much more power and mystery than slave. Sometimes I’ll ask Scott to do something he doesn’t want to do, like call his mom (sadly, she passed away in 2016). He’ll take awhile to think about it, and then say, “I am a Dewww-lossss, I’ll do it for Christ.”

I love searching for our word rocks. Watching the kids so earnestly seek their rocks to write their new word for a new year: Joy. Faith. Loyalty, they wrote this year. Five-year-old Cruz crayoned “eagle” on his rock. I know. How does one become more of an eagle? I guess you learn how to soar. That’s a good word: soar. Maybe I’ll choose soar next year for my word.

But probably not. Because I don’t really choose my words. I earnestly pray for God to show me what He wants for my year. I ask the Lord to give me my word.

Down in the ravine, on the edge of our farm, green grass is growing. California has gotten plenty of rain this year. It rained this morning, but by afternoon, when we walked to the ravine, it was a bright, sunny day. Even the dogs enjoyed their time in the sun watching their humans gather rocks.

Do you have a word yet for your year? A guide word from God? A whispered promise that helps tell your story?

I just said a prayer for you. That your word would be just what you need to help you become who God wants you to become this year. I never knew when I chose the word rejoice in 2015, that it would really mean rejoice in suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts…” Romans 5:3-5.

I wouldn’t return to 2013, 14, and 15 for anything, but I also wouldn’t trade what those tough years taught me. I have grown in perseverance and character and hope. If you’ve had some tough years too, take heart, God has overcome the world. The daily grind of your life because grinding is a good word. When you grind wheat, you get flour, and then you make a pie.

Today I made that pie. Out of cherries from our harvest this past summer. We didn’t get very many cherries because right before our cherry harvest, it rained really hard, and ruined nearly all of our cherries. We had none to sell. But I salvaged a few, climbed up into our trees and picked what I could that hadn’t hit the ground and split in half. And I pitted cherries for hours with my grandma’s old cherry pitter, and my fingers turned purple for days, and I froze the whole lot. After working hours at the farmer’s market, then picking cherries and pitting them that night, I just stuck them in the freezer for a better day, and went to bed. Sometimes you have to do that. Put your head down, work hard, and plan for a better day.

Today was that better day. The boys loved that New Year’s Eve cherry pie I started on this summer, and finished the last day of the year.

Just because you’ve had some hard rain in your life, doesn’t mean the rain will ruin you. Make a plan. Make a pie. And spit in adversary’s eye because God’s got you. He’s really got you if you’re holding onto Him.

The joy of the Lord is your strength, Nehemiah 8:10. You don’t have to create joy for yourself. Joy comes when God’s ready to release his joy on you. Sometimes this can take a few years.

“Why did you choose the word joy?” I asked G2.

“I don’t know why. I just feel joy today,” G2 said with a cheeky grin.

Cruz needed help spelling his word “eagle.” Lacy is such a good big sister. She sat there with Cruz in the dirt for quite awhile helping him get his letters just right. In the end, I couldn’t read the word on his rock, but he was so proud of it and placed it on our fireplace mantle as if it was the greatest masterpiece.

The interesting thing is I watched a baby eagle hatch on Facebook today. I don’t know why, but I hoarded the eagle cam video all to myself. Normally, I’d call the boys over to my computer and say, “Watch the baby eagle hatch, it’s really neat,” but I didn’t say that today. I just sat there quietly alone watching that baby eagle struggle to break out of his shell. And mama eagle just sat there watching him too. She didn’t help her little hatchling hatch, but when he seemed to grow weary, she tucked him under her feathers for awhile, and let him rest half-hatched.

Sometimes we have to rest half-hatched.

Sometimes we have to let our kids rest half-hatched.

Lacy spent a couple of years living half-hatched. And she missed last new years rock gathering with us. On a trip to Florida, she called me crying. Really crying. Hard crying. Things weren’t going well with a boyfriend at the time, and she sounded so weary. I just wanted to tuck her under my feathers and let her rest for awhile.

By Easter, feeling so weary myself hurting for my hurting child, I asked all of you to pray for Lacy. And thank you so much because here she is free from her shell and soaring into 2017. Two of her brothers out grew her this year, she is walking back to the house with her little brother, Joey in the picture below, but she got into nursing school, and has found her man. A good man who loves her right. 2016 was a good year, not just for Lacy and Jake, but Cami and Drew are expecting their own little hatchling come July.

Scott and I are thrilled to become grandparents in 2017. And every night now Cruz prays to be a good uncle to the baby in Cami’s womb. “When you’re in the 6th grade, don’t let anyone pick on your little niece or nephew in kindergarten,” Scott coaches Cruz each night. It always makes me smile, thinking about our grandbaby, saying at school, “You better not mess with me or my uncle in the 6th grade will kick your butt!”

I know. We’re a weird family. Laugh with me.

I don’t know what your year looked like, if you laughed or if you cried, but maybe we shouldn’t look at our years one at a time like I’ve been doing these past few years. Maybe we should look at our years like chapters in our story. Good chapters. Painful chapters. Real life chapters.

God is writing your story even now. No matter where you are. No matter how you’re doing. Do you believe that? Can you trust in your Savior? I want to leave you with something I saw on Instagram the other day that I can’t get out of my mind. Here it is from John Piper…

Do you trust in the real Christ or are you following a modern remake? Do you even know who the real Christ is? Have you read the gospels? All of them over and over again so you can really know the genuine Christ, or are you settling for a modern remake? A weak and watered down Jesus who will never change your life, change your heart, save your soul. Your story depends on this truth.

I chose the word “grow” for 2017 because I want to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 Peter 3:18.

Happy New Year my friend! May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ too. The real Christ, not a modern remake.