For several years now—at least back to around 2008—I’ve chosen a word to guide my year.
Not a resolution.
Not a checklist.
Just a single word.
It’s a practice that really took shape for me around 2012, when my Sunday school class read My One Word by Mike Ashcraft together. Ashcraft describes the purpose of choosing one word simply and beautifully: to help people walk with God. His book offers a kind of manual—choose a word, pair it with a scripture, meditate on it, and return to it again and again as the year unfolds.
That framework stuck with me.
Over the years, I’ve chosen words like heal, laugh, yes, and energy. Some of those words shaped entire seasons of my life. Others worked more quietly, doing their work beneath the surface. And then there are years—like last year—when I get to December and had to look back to see what my word was for 2025 🤯
Last year’s word, looking back, was intentionality.
I named it at the beginning of 2025 and then promptly forgot it, but I lived it. I had to. Decisions didn’t happen by accident. Relationships didn’t deepen by default. Ministry didn’t just “roll along.” Everything required intention—how I spent my time, where I said yes, where I said no, how I showed up when I was tired. 2025 was a hard year with health scares in my family, job transitions, financial changes, and well – life! All happening at once and all in turmoil (even if I made it or tried to make it seem easy).
And maybe that’s one of the gifts of this practice: even when we don’t hold the word tightly, the word can still hold us.
This past year, my life changed in ways I couldn’t have predicted. Two churches. Two cities. Two rhythms of ministry unfolding at the same time. A calendar that always feels one step ahead of me. A near-constant sense of running behind, rushing to the next thing, already thinking about what’s coming instead of where I am.
If I’m honest, there were moments when I felt fragmented—present everywhere and nowhere all at once.
So when it came time to choose a word for this year, the word didn’t arrive dramatically. It came quietly. Persistently. Almost insistently. I tried on many words, but this one wouldn’t let me go – this one called out like a needy child – PICK ME!
Presence.
Not productivity.
Not growth.
Not even rest.
Presence.
For me, presence means choosing to be fully where I am in the moment—whether that moment is holy or mundane, joyful or exhausting, planned or unexpected. It means resisting the temptation to live half a step ahead of myself. It means not letting the next meeting steal my attention from the person in front of me. It means trusting that God is already at work right here, not just “over there.”
Presence sounds simple. It’s not.
- Presence takes planning—because it doesn’t happen automatically in a crowded life.
- Presence takes patience—with myself and with the pace of things.
- Presence takes trust—trust that God provides a way to “get it all done,” even when I’m not hustling at full speed.
This year, I’m pairing the word presence with a verse that sustained me through much of 2025. It comes from Esther 4:14, paraphrased in my own words:
Maybe just maybe you are here and created for this!
That verse reminds me that this moment—this season, this calling, this complicated, beautiful, stretched-too-thin life—is not a mistake. I don’t need to rush through it to get to something more important. This is the important thing.
Presence, paired with that verse, becomes a kind of grounding prayer:
I am not late to my life.
I am not behind God’s timing.
I was created for this moment.
Choosing one word won’t magically simplify the year ahead. It won’t prevent exhaustion or eliminate hard days. But it does give me something to return to—a compass when I feel scattered, a touchstone when I forget what matters most.
And when I inevitably drift (because I will), the word waits patiently for me to come back.
So this year, I release the need to be everywhere.
I choose to be fully here.
Perhaps that’s enough.
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