My 2014 One Word

 

I feel like I’m experiencing deja vu. It was this time last year while I was on vacation that I was contemplating and writing about my One Word: change.

I’m with my family in the Smoky Mountains again. While we explore nature, stuff ourselves with rich, sugary foods and spend quality time putting together a thousand-piece puzzle in our cabin, I’m reflecting on change, as well as contemplating the word God has placed in my heart for 2014.

This time last year, I thought change would be designated to my blog and my music. Little did I know that change would weave its way through my entire life, turning everything upside down. I had no idea my music dreams would fall apart, my writing would take a turn for the dark side, I’d quit church and relationships would reach the breaking point.

My husband, my girls and I have all worked together on the 1,000-piece puzzle over the last three days. We leave for home today, and while the puzzle is taking shape, scattered pieces still cover the table. We won’t finish it. I couldn’t help but think that’s how all the change has left me: broken and scattered, with only parts of me intact. Unfinished.

We gathered with thousands of strangers last night on downtown streets to count down the minutes until the beginning of this new year. I wasn’t sure if I was celebrating the end of a shitty year or the hope for things to come in this new one.

Hope. I almost don’t dare.

But for all the change, for all the disappointment, for all the heartache, for all the shit…I can’t escape the One Word I’ve been given.

Jubilee.

I know: who uses that word?!

Several weeks ago, my husband and I were watching Joel Osteen in the comfort of our living room on a Sunday morning. Osteen talked about the significance of jubilee and restoration at the end of a seven-year period. Mark looked over at me and said, January will be seven years… Maybe 2014 will be your year.

Seven years since I changed our lives forever. Seven years of hard redemption. Seven years since I really realized for the first time that God does, indeed, love me.

Just before Christmas I was contemplating words for my One Word. Several came to mind and had potential, but jubilee kept coming to mind. It was an odd word that I didn’t really want to consider. But then my family and I went to see a movie in which the plot was centered around an event named “Jubilee Christmas.” In less than two hours, I’d heard the word no less than twenty times.

Point taken, God.

My first thought about jubilee was to focus on the idea of restoration at the end of a seven-year period. But as I began to research the word, I was overwhelmed by what I found. I came across Bono’s speech that he delivered at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast. I remembered having read it quite a while back when my co-writer/friend emailed it to me. The speech was based on the idea of jubilee.

I headed down a trail…

I also remembered my friend telling me that he wrote “All Things New” {the first song on my EP} after being inspired by a book Bono had written about African orphans. I contacted him and found out that the book was basically an edited version of Bono’s prayer breakfast speech.

I began trying to connect dots…

Seven years. Redemption. Restoration. Jubilee. All Things New. My EP. Music. Dreams.

Failure…

But my friend told me something else that took my breath: the word jubilee actually comes from the name Jubal. In Genesis 4:21 it references Jubal as “…the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.”

Shut. Up. Dare I hope?

Then…

I did a little more research of my own and found that the noun jubal means music.

Jubilee=jubal=music.

God, do not tease me! Could this be the year of restoration of music for me?

I have to tell you that I don’t really trust God. Who am I kidding? I don’t trust anybody. And all the change of last year only served to deepen my distrust. So I’m finding it super hard to believe that 2014 could possibly be a good year. A dream-fulfilling kind of year. A putting-the-pieces-together kind of year. A restoration year. A jubilee year.

Here’s hoping…