Living in the Word

January comes, stark white. My front yard still not emerging from the foot of snow that blanketed the last week of December. The calendar pages are pristine, beautiful in their emptiness. Days yet to be counted set before me, a fresh start. The Year of Giving has arrived, full of promise.

As I learned yesterday, giving must take place inside my home before it can take place out in the wide world. Eve is only set before us as a wife and a mother - those roles, her most important. The ones we should cling to as most important. In the perfection of Eden, she had no other obligations.  This world is not the Garden and I find myself stretched thin as tissue paper, afraid I'll tear into shreds at any minute.

How will I be able to give then?

This fresh year sparks a desire for a fresh start. The opportunity to begin good habits.

In this Year of Giving, I will give myself the Word of God in a new way, savoring each precious morsel rather than consuming without thought.

Instead of being intimidated by the thought of having to read the Bible through in a year (and the dread, failure and guilt which inevitably ensued), I am spending the year in the Word using this plan (an answer to prayer!). Soaking in the Word, meditating on it, and hopefully living in it.

I am also memorizing fighter verses to hide the Word in my heart, fight the good battle, and fend off the enemy. (Thank you, John Piper & Bethlehem Baptist Church).
  
I'm giving myself the habit of spending valuable time in the only Words that matter. It's the best give I'll ever receive.