Picture a Grandpa and Grandma on a two-hour early Sunday morning road trip with 9-year-old twin grandsons—my bright idea for how we could all attend an out-of-town birthday party without missing Sunday worship. (Church always being Sunday’s top priority, I found a church in our association just twelve minutes from the party location.) We arrived with doughnuts to share with the congregation (because doughnuts are a surefire way to make friends, right?).

At this point I should explain that the twins attend a wonderful Bible-teaching church with traditions that differ from the wonderful Bible-teaching church where my husband and I are members. While we have liturgy and weekly communion in a one-room church house (people of all ages sitting together through one long service), they’re used to congregational singing followed by age-appropriate teaching in Sunday school rooms. So, with this one being more like our home church than theirs, it behooved us to prepare our active grandsons for a longer sit-quietly experience than they were used to. (And no, if you’re wondering, behooved isn’t one of my 2025 words, but isn’t it fun to give it a little screentime?)

Our church provides little ones with prompts for taking sermon notes, so, seeing the church we were visiting didn’t have an equivalent, I tore some pages from my notebook, grabbed a couple of extra pens and gave the boys an assignment.

“I want you to write down five to ten words you hear during the sermon and make tally marks every time you hear them repeated.”

Did they do it?

You betcha! I believe “Jesus” and “Love” made it onto both lists with several tally marks for each.

It strikes me the word-of-the-year practice is something like what I did to prepare my grandkids for that church service. It’s an experience where God metaphorically hands His children a piece of paper to help them navigate the coming year. My grandsons noticed particular words that repeated in the sermon, in the same way a word-of-the-year participant will see her word showing up in Bible reading, songs, conversations, movies, books, and even a Sunday sermon or two.

This year, the way one word lead to another and another for me reminds me of a fairy tale I loved as a child, The Princess Who Never Laughed (read here for a fairytale break). Instead of highlighting just one word for me to notice, study, and meditate upon, it feels like God did something more like what I did with my grandkids. Something more like the old grey man in the fairy tale did for Simpleton. He handed me a shovel and instructed me to dig for one golden word that would lead to others. One gift that would bring others along in a parade for my King’s pleasure.

When I introduced the idea for this 2025 series to my email subscribers in January, I included two verses.

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

This is the first verse of many I included on two printed pages I’ve been using for daily meditation. I’ve walked through the verses and prayers on those pages most mornings and again at bedtime, my words-of-the-year marked like stepping stones. PLANS…PURPOSE…STAND…

As I ponder and meditate, I often recall other verses with additional words that connect and repeat. I’ve circled, underlined, color-coded and written in between paragraphs and along page borders. Not even three months into the year, my pages are soft and wrinkled and worn, and still these stepping stones lead me along with added nuance and weight.

The other verse I wrote in that January email, starts the section of my meditation pages where LIGHT, WALK, DARKNESS, WORD and SHONE/SHINES take center stage.

After much prayer, I’m sharing that section with you today. Not simply as it’s written on the pages, but in the way it might flow as I meditate upon it. Because I’m lead to emphasize different words and phrases on different days, grouping and ordering lines differently from the way they originally appeared. Sometimes I meditate on just one verse or even part of a verse, other times I read through from beginning to end. One time, after several weeks of using these pages as a guide, I noticed a word I hadn’t paid much attention to in previous readings.

DWELT appeared not in one verse but two, and drew me to focus on the connection.

Since this developed over several weeks of prayer and memory and word search, I don’t know if you will see, with just one reading, all that I see.  I imagine, if my grandsons listened to that same sermon day after day, new words would have made their way onto Lyle and Matthew’s lists. There would be more tally marks on the original words as they heard them in places they hadn’t noticed the first time. And that’s what’s happened to me with the Scriptures and prayers I wrote down for myself at the beginning of this year.

But, even though you might not get as much out of it as I do, I’d like to share this portion of my word walk with you, one word leading to another, new words connecting and showing up in one verse after another, adding in, circling back, lines repeating like a chorus. (To help in this endeavor, I’ve included the book from which each Scripture is taken and put repeating words into ALL CAPS, bolding each one the first time it appears).

So, these words from my meditation pages may not, on first reading, make any more sense to you than that sermon in its entirety would have made to my nine-year-old grandsons (who are, I should say—in case they read this—now ten). But I hope I’ve given you enough direction to dig in and find a golden word or two. Just enough to get you started on your own word parade.

A  Meditation on Walk, Light, Word, Path, Darkness (and a few more)

We WALK as children of LIGHT (for the fruit of LIGHT is found in all that is GOOD and right and true) seeking to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. (Ephesians)

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my PATH. (Psalms)

IN THE BEGINNING was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. He was IN THE BEGINNING with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the LIGHT of men. (Gospel of John)

The people who WALKed in DARKNESS have seen a great LIGHT; Those who DWELT in a land of deep DARKNESS, on them has LIGHT SHONE. The LIGHT SHINES in the DARKNESS, and the DARKNESS has not overcome it. (Isaiah)

And the WORD became flesh and DWELT among us. (Gospel of John)

Again Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the LIGHT of the world. Whoever follows Me will not WALK in DARKNESS, but will have the LIGHT of LIFE. (Gospel of John)

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my PATH.

He leads me in PATHs of righteousness for His Name’s sake. (Psalms)

WALK as children of LIGHT (for the fruit of LIGHT can be found in all that is GOOD and right and true).

I will give you as a covenant for the people, a LIGHT for the nations. To open the eyes that are blind, to lead out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in DARKNESS. And I will lead the blind in a way they do not know. In PATHs that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn this DARKNESS before them into LIGHT. (Isaiah)

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my PATH.

IN THE BEGINNING, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and DARKNESS was over the face of the earth. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be LIGHT, and there was LIGHT. And God saw that the LIGHT was GOOD. And God separated the LIGHT from the DARKNESS. God called the LIGHT Day and the DARKNESS He called Night. (Genesis)

And the city has no need of sun or moon to SHINE on it, for the glory of God gives it LIGHT, and its LAMP is the Lamb. By its LIGHT will the nations WALK. (Revelations)

Your WORD is a lamp to my feet and a LIGHT to my PATH.

And night will be no more. They will need no LIGHT of LAMP or sun, for the Lord God will be their LIGHT.  (Revelations)

IN THE BEGINNING was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. He was IN THE BEGINNING with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the LIGHT of men. (Gospel of John)

We WALK as children of LIGHT, seeking to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Your WORD is a LAMP to our FEET and a LIGHT to our PATH. (Ephesians, Isaiah)

*Scriptures here taken from: Ephesians 5:8-10, Psalm 119:105, John 1:1-5&14, Isaiah 9:2, John 8:12, Psalm 23, Isaiah 42:6,7,16, Genesis 1:1-5, Revelations 21:23, 24, Revelations 22:25. Please note, this is a meditation and not a study. Please look up scripture passages for full meaning in context.

Perhaps it’s obvious I’m no expert on meditation, but meditation was once described to me as a holy kind of worrying (sadly, something I am an expert on). So, instead of focusing, pondering and ruminating on every fearful thought that enters my mind, I’m practicing this way of replacing worries with the word of God. Turning these verses over in my mind, looking at them from different angles, letting them sink in and repeat and point to additional verses to become a cadence arising in unexpected moments. Helping me walk more consistently, hopefully, and joyfully as a child of light.

P.S. If we were having this conversation in front of my fireplace right now, this is the time I would pull out my marked up pages. You might then nod politely and say, “Well, it’s been a nice visit, but the weather looks threatening (which is true), so I’d better go.” But if you think you’d be more likely to want a closer look at those pages as a visual aid to what I’m here describing, I’d be happy to email you a scanned copy.

And no judgments please. This isn’t something I’ve prettily prepared for my blog friends or my email friends. It’s just something tucked into my journal that I’m willing to share with my fireplace friends. So, if that’s you, write me at jody@jodyevans.com and ask.

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I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine

– Song of Solomon 6:3

You know what to expect from valentine stories, don’t you? Something about a couple and their love for each other. Add in some obstacles to overcome, candles, flowers, chocolate, and a wedding in the end. But that’s not what this is. This one’s a love story starring God.

(Since so many Christmas movies these days are about couples falling in love, I figure it’d be only fair to highjack valentine season for more of a God focus.)

This tale may be devoid of flowers and candlelight, but do remember the Hero overcame the greatest of obstacles to rescue His love and make her His own.

With that settled, let’s start with the undeniable romance of the Ten Commandments.

What? You don’t see the romance?

Consider the words Jesus used to answer the question, What is the greatest commandment? His response was basically love and more love.

Those weren’t His exact words, but isn’t it a bit startling to see that He stitched the word Commandment to the word Love.

Maybe not such a surprise to the crowd of Jews listening in as to your average, modern day American. After all, a good Jew was probably quite familiar with the words of the Shema:

Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And as for you, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

For this born-in-the-20th-century-American-girl, the word commandment typically turns my thoughts to The Ten Commandments—a God-prescribed list of dos and don’ts.

Over time, though, and with the help of some friends, I’ve come to see The Ten Commandments in a different way. As more of a love note than a table of rules.

Ann Voskamp uses this lens beautifully in Day 10 of her book, The Greatest Gift. There she illustrates how the giving of The Ten Commandments was full of wedding symbology. She includes these three (click on the links for a fun–and brief–explanation of the terms):

• The mikveh, a preparatory purification, evident in God’s instruction to Moses when He said, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments.”
• The canopy of cloud that covered Mount Sinai can be viewed as a sort of chuppah.
• The commandments themselves, she views as a form of ketubah. A love contract.

When I picture them in this way, as part of a wedding ceremony, I can see God’s commands aren’t simply rules, but more akin to vows of love. Take the third commandment for instance, the one about not taking the name of the Lord in vain. In the context of a wedding, a bride takes her husband’s name as her own. To take her husband’s name in vain would include more than merely saying it in a disrespectful way but anything she does that is unworthy of being Mrs. Somebody. Acting as if she is not married to him. As if she does not belong to him at all. Taking her husband’s name in vain is not a thing we would expect a loving bride to ever want to do.

A Matter of the Heart

I again saw the commandments-and-love connection in a book by Timothy S Lane and Paul David Tripp. Coincidentally, perhaps (or perhaps, not?), these authors address The Ten Commandments in chapter 10. The subtitle of this section? “The Law and the Heart.” Here they write that the Commandments emphasize the centrality of the heart.

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’”

See? Love and more love.

Since this was the first part of Christ’s answer, it’s a good idea to ponder it deeply and continuously. Christ’s bride is to love Him with everything she is, committing herself fully to Him, taking on His name as her own and being changed because of it. Then He went on to say more.

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

The second most important commandment is also well-known amongst Christians and—I would venture to guess—people with any knowledge of the Bible at all. But figuring out how to live it out isn’t as simple as it would seem. In my closest human relationships, I fear I sometimes give a bigger piece of my heart or mind or strength to my neighbor than I do to God, thereby loving my neighbor in the way I’m meant to love God.  At other times, though I believe myself to be loving God rightly, I’m quite content to treat certain neighbors as unworthy of my attention or kindness.

And what about periods of self-hate or low self-esteem? How can it be right for anyone to love her neighbor as she loves herself at those times?

To solve that one, the world (and some preachers) would tell us a person must first love herself before she can properly love her neighbor. Which seems sort of right, but I can’t pinpoint scriptural examples that demonstrate this is so. Can you?

I’ve always assumed to love my neighbor as myself means I should treat my neighbor with the same loving good will I have toward myself, but lately, I’ve come to consider one more possible layer of interpretation. This isn’t based on scholarly study of the original language, but on my habit of digging into the meaning of words in my own native (AKA only) language. And according to my own culture.

I’ve done that with this passage because I’ve noticed a different sort of problem in the way I love my neighbor. In my desire to love my fellow humans well, I’ve taken it upon myself to always be available, always knowing exactly what he or she needs, and always able to supply whatever that may be.

Do you see an “omni” pattern here in my alwayses? It’s as if I believe I ought to be loving my neighbor with omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence.

Of course, I fail. Because those attributes aren’t mine. The sad truth is I’ve been trying to love my neighbor not as I’m designed to love but as only God can. As if I should (and could) be God to them through my love.

It’s like I know enough that I’m in the right love story, only I’ve gotten things out of order. I’ve miscast myself in a playbill that would read something like this:

Love Story I and II (or maybe II and then I?)

God……… played by God (with assistance from Jody)

Jody……… played by???? (Not available, she’s too busy trying to play God)

Jody’s projects……… unwittingly played by neighbors

(No wonder I’ve been wearing myself out and missing my cues!)

These days, I’m looking at a different playbill. One with Parts solidly in the proper order and the characters properly cast.

Loving God – Part 1

God……… played by God

Bride……… played by Christ’s church (including Jody playing her part with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength)

Loving God – Part II

God……… played by God

Bride……… played by Christ’s church (including you playing yourself and Jody playing herself)

Neighbors……… played by everyone else

And, like every good love story, whatever heartache and difficulty we find along the way, we can count on things wrapping up with a big, beautiful wedding celebration.

Revelations 

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God

The Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult

And give Him the glory,

For the marriage of the Lamb has come,

And His bride has made herself ready.”

(Chapter nineteen, verses six and seven)

Now, don’t you think that’s a love story worth celebrating the whole year through?

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January is the time of year for resolutions, I know. Time to make big plans for improving the way you do life. Time to focus on goals and how to finally accomplish them. To determine how you will grow your business or shrink your waistline (or both) in the coming year.

The turn of a new year is also the time many folks decide to give special attention to a word-of-the-year.

New Year’s resolutions and choosing a word-of-the-year are two practices I follow a lot of years, but not all.

I don’t remember my resolution from last year, or if I even had one. If I did, I’m sure it included pitching my soon-to-be completed, edited, and polished novel to a list of agents. (That resolution has gathered some mileage over the last several New Years.) But, formally resolved or not, by the start of the last quarter of 2024, I could see I’d made progress on my novel goals. I was polishing away on my final (I hoped) draft, sending chapters to my Timothy and preparing my proposal for a list of agents whom I thought might be interested.

What I do remember is not one word, but two, Courage and Humility, took me by the hands to lead me on a brisk, scenic walk through the hills and valleys of the year. A pair I enjoyed spending time with. An interesting and balanced duo that offered lessons for stepping forward in scary places and, in other ways, stepping back. Teaching me I don’t have to make such a big deal of myself (what a relief!).

In the final quarter of 2024, a likely candidate came forward as 2025’s word-of-the-year. A word quickly followed by another.

And another.

And another.

When a flu knocked me off my feet two days before Thanksgiving, hours of bed-bound reading time brought new candidates via the stack of books on my nightstand. Repeated in Scripture and song, an ever-lengthening parade of words marched through my mind carrying an unlikely resolution hoisted on their shoulders: 

Go slow and do less in 2025!

This was unexpected. Not a slogan that fits my idea of resolution material in general and far from the top of my needed-improvements list. (Let’s just say Speedy Doer would not be an apt description for this gal!)

The aftereffects of my pre-Thanksgiving flu dragged on until a Christmas cold knocked my baby steps of restored energy back to the ground. And after getting banged up a bit by twice tumbling down the bottom steps of my staircase, I could see going slow had benefits I hadn’t thought of.

So, I carefully pulled Christmas decorations from the attic at a one-box-per-day pace. I bought and wrapped gifts (or not) on a case by case basis. It felt sloppy and wrong until a bout of post-flu, low-grade depression took care of that, slowing even my thoughts about what matters in the doing of the holidays.

Now, having packed away the last Christmas decorations by the midpoint of January with only a dozen or so Christmas cards left to sign and address, I’m signing and addressing with a slow and loving hand. My guilt-free transition into this slow year.

I don’t know exactly what my slow year will look like other than an unhurried pondering of the dozen or so words-of-the-year that look to be walking through it with me. I’m excited to tell you the stories behind them as, starting next month, I bring a few at a time. (Not a jumping up and down excited, more like a quiet, glowing, gladness of anticipation.)

A leisurely conversation inviting you to go slow, put aside some doings, and ponder along with me. 

Please join this slow conversation with a word or two (or more) of your own ponderings in the comments below.

This month’s question: What does your resolution or word-of-the-year practice like? (if you don’t have either practice, I’d love to know about that, too)

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