By Marianne H.
Homeschooling Mom in Colorado

Sometimes I get ahead of myself and of God. I am a forward thinker, envisioning the future. Several years ago, the Lord, in His attempt to slow my mind down to the present, asked me to focus on One Word for the entire year—to name my year with the intention of growing in that one area. I like words, so I thought that one at a time would be great. I was in. Of course, I asked if my word could be Love. Love seemed easy. He said Courage. Courage would be my word and that year I practiced bringing His Courage to six specific areas of my life.

The next year I was sure my word from Him would be Love. Still seemed easy. He said Entrust. I have always resonated with the picture from 1 Peter 2:23 of Jesus on the cross entrusting Himself to the Father. But I wondered about this word for me. I soon found out. In October of 2013 my husband was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease), and that began my year of entrusting myself to my Father as we walked through grief, change, shifts in our marriage, parenting issues, insurance and medical problems. Days of attempting to dig out from under the overwhelming piles of all the things I couldn’t control and didn’t ask for, I would—and could—only mutter “Entrust.” I held on to this one word and the hope that He would get my family and I through.

Marianne and Her Family

He grew my faith and moved me into a new year and I began to pray about a new word. But before He moved entrust into the fabric of my life, He had to show me how much I needed to surrender and entrust my future to Him because how I had envisioned, dreamed and imagined it might not be so. He asked me to entrust this unknown future into His hands without any idea of how tangled relationships would be brought to reconciliation, or without glimpses of how the issues with our kids would unfold. My dreams, desires and destiny were all laid at His feet. Easy to say, but in order for me to do it and to walk through it practically and authentically, the Lord had to remind me that the circumstances don’t and won’t look neat and pretty, but that He IS Lord over all my circumstances. His Spirit is at work in all the unseen places, all the ones I can’t wrap my brain around. He is supreme and in Him I entrust my life.

How about you? In what area of your life do you need the Lord to shift your focus and remind you who He is?