Another year, another word decision. This year it wasn’t as easy as last year. Last year’s word seemed so obvious, this year, not so much. I thought and prayed and brainstormed and looked up synonyms and definitions. Soul-searching.

Using some of my links may keep my mug full. My disclosure is at the top of my blog.

I had a feeling it was going to involve living out God’s purpose for my life. I considered purpose but, eh…it wasn’t hitting right. I know God’s will for all of us is to bring Him glory and we do that by obeying. His will, as scripture says, is the same for all of us, but His plan for each of us looks different: whether and who we marry, where we work, where or how we serve Him within our local church body and beyond, etc.. I felt like I don’t know God’s itinerary for me this year so the word purpose was too vague.

I know there were some Bible verses that came up in my searching. I can’t remember exactly what all they were. Romans 8:28 was there, one or more from Ephesians. Something was lining up with purpose, I think, but not that word exactly.

Finally, a one word statement that seemed right for this new year settled in my mind.

Testing 1,2, 3…

First let me think back to my 2024 word, Fruitful, and no, my word is not testing.

I began the year with a plan to do a Youtube Bible study on the Proverbs 31 Woman using the book I made called Becoming the Proverbs 31 Woman…for Teens, too! It’s a coloring workbook Bible study for adults and teens and is available on Amazon here.

For the online study I read through the book and showed the pages; but, I added more material to the Youtube study that wasn’t part of the book: free printables and more information. The freebies are only available through my blog – but they are free to download and print. If you follow the Youtube Playlist for the Proverbs 31 Woman series you will see links in the description box taking you to both the book and the free additional printables.

After that series I did a second Youtube series on my Fear of the Lord coloring workbook for teens and adults.

Pruning seems to be a necessary part of being Fruitful and there was a time where I felt led to do some. I decided to discontinue a second blog I had planned to grow and to stop my newsletter.

I was also tested at different times of the year through some hardships. Some of these involved being attacked online by people I knew personally over some benign posts I shared on Facebook. The timing of their attacks really stood out. It happened a couple times right about the time I was going to do the next video in my Youtube Bible study series so I definitely see those as being spiritually motivated.

More opportunities to work at being Fruitful: I had the opportunity to show my books at a local author fair at one of our libraries and I participated in two craft/vendor shows. I do these events to get word out about my books and hopefully sell some.

Our youngest son graduated homeschool high school which freed up more of my time and energy. Staying home with the kids and working from home, self-employed, for the past 20 years came with financial sacrifices and now I could focus on working outside the home again and helping more with that.

Towards the end of the year it was decided that the Life Group my husband and I had led for the past four years would get new leaders and that freed me up even more to focus on other things.

Then, during the month of December my van decided three different times it didn’t want to start. The battery was just put in in August this year by AAA and is a AAA brand battery under warranty. Something was draining the battery apparently but nothing was proving to be the cause (our mechanic shop looked at it) and AAA refused to replace it.

We knew we had a sliding door stuck for months and over Christmas break while both my jobs were closed for two weeks we had the door fixed. Now we wait to see if that may have had something to do with it or will my van decide not to start again one day soon?

The most interesting thing about all of this was the timing.

Timing is everything, they say.

The door had been stuck for months, we couldn’t open it. I had an estimate done in September and it was looking expensive so we didn’t have it fixed right away. Our battery troubles started the fifth of December and fortunately I was scheduled to job coach at a location that was a five minute walk from home. So twice when the van wouldn’t start I walked to and from work and or my son drove me a couple times…and it was cold, one day being about 17 degrees.

I was scheduled 10 days in December to be 5 minutes from home and so I didn’t have to miss work due to this problem. Mind you, up till this assignment, I worked too far to walk and usually I was driving my students to and from the various workplaces. I didn’t have to drive my December person.

I know God had a hand in my schedule. He knew my van would fail me at some point and He worked it all out. Both my jobs were scheduled to close down for two weeks due to the holidays and that gave me an opportunity to get the door fixed without being in a pinch with work. We dropped it off Christmas night the 25th and it wasn’t completed till December 30th.

My Word for 2025

Ready or not!

For 2025 my goal is to be ready for whatever the Lord wants to do in or with my life, next. This doesn’t mean I haven’t worked at being ready in the past.

Ready: The primary sense is to go, move, or advance forward. Quick, prompt, not hesitating, quick to receive or comprehend, prepared, fitted, furnished with what is necessary, willing, free, cheerful to do or suffer… Some of the definitions from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary online.

This is just my intentional goal for the new year, especially as 2024 brought some big changes to my daily life and focus with graduating our youngest from homeschooling, cutting out some dead weight that was threatening to hold me back and now working outside the home again.

Both of our sons are young adults now, working full time in the trades, active in church and with their singles group at church, discipleship and so on. They are still at home. It’s a blessing to see God’s faithfulness and fruitfulness in their lives.

I also have been slowly working on another Bible study workbook over the past year or three. I feel like if I had a dedicated space to be organized and to work in whenever I wanted I would be a lot further along, maybe finished by now, but that is not the case. I have to assume that if God is behind the working of this next book then I have to learn to be content to work with circumstances that are less than what I want and feel I need; and, that makes me realize it really has to be HIM behind the book and not me in a cozy office space in a physically perfect environment. Although, I don’t want to hold Him back if He wants to give me that space someday 😀 .

I haven’t had that space for any of my other books either, by the way.

There were times where everything just came together and I had the motivation and vision…and maybe that was the Holy Spirit really just bringing it all together at the right time. I had the vision for what I was doing and was able to spend hours getting it done in the very place I’m standing right this minute as I type this post. My makeshift desk: It’s just a long kind of buffet height dresser between two tall bookshelves in the living room in front of a window. I can stand here and work. When the weather is more comfortable I can work in the sunroom where I actually have a table and stool set up.

Shortly before Christmas I decided to make up for my lack of having the perfect environment by gathering the multiple notebooks I’d been making notes in for this book, ripping out my note pages and taping them to pages inside the largest notebook which happens to be one of my graph paper notebooks that I self-publish. Since I don’t have dedicated work space for laying out the pages as I go I decided this notebook will be my space for that. Once everything is in that book I can work on making more sense of it and rearranging.

Ready for what?

Up until recently I had some things I needed to get done so I could focus on being ready. I mentioned figuring out how to move forward on this book project in my current state of less than ideal workspace already in this post. I also needed to get my son’s transcripts finished…that happened recently. Yeah, I only drug my feet for about seven months.

Unfinished business can keep us from moving forward. Sometimes we just have to stop and get something we dread finished so we can fully move on mentally and so forth. I remember years ago someone talking about a book called Eat That Frog that was about this very topic, I believe. I just ordered a copy for myself to read.

Lord willing I will have an opportunity to help in a Bible study some women from church are taking turns doing at an assisted living residence. I would like to work on smaller topical Bible studies in my personal time so that I am READY for when such opportunities arise.

My 2025 Bible reading goal is to read and or listen through the Bible chronologically. I found this plan from Blue Letter Bible online that breaks down the chapters by events.

I continue to purge things from our home that are cluttering it and are unnecessary so we can be READY in case we decide to move, which we have talked about.

We were recently given a sofa from a family member who downsized and now we have a cozier set up for company because we have extra seating now. Three mismatched sofas – each has its charm, if you will. I definitely feel more READY to start having people over more often this year.

I’m learning to make do with what I have so I am ready to move on to the next step towards finishing my book, getting ready to start hosting more, purging our home of clutter so we are closer to being ready to move if we have the opportunity, wanting to work on some topical Bible studies so I am ready to share or teach if called upon… and who knows what else the Lord will lead me on to do.

Becoming Ready is my 2025 vision. What’s yours?