I thought long and hard about my word for this year, and I finally settled on the word peace.

I really thought I was going to use the word whole, which was the word Ali Edwards chose last year.  There is something intriguing about the word whole to me, and I will continue to think about how I can incorporate that into my life, but here’s the deal…..

The last several years have been challenging for me, and for us as a family.

We have faced more obstacles than most.  It has often felt like we’ve been swimming upstream, thrashing through the currents of our changing dynamics, trying to find our place in this messy thing we call life.  I spent several years jumping from crisis to crisis, trying to put out fires at the expense of my well-being.

And somewhere in all that I lost my way.

I’ve spent the last two years working tirelessly at getting back to good.  I’ve worked on myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I’ve prayed, I’ve talked, I’ve taken control of my health, I’ve written, I’ve cried, I’ve talked some more, and I’ve found better ways of being.

And as much as I like the idea of the word whole, to be honest it sounds like a lot of work, and right now I just don’t have it in me.

I need peace.  I need calm.  I need to not be chasing the next goal, the next great thing.  I need to not be striving to be a better me, I need to just be me.

The word peace started creeping into my consciousness a couple of months ago, when things were once again feeling hectic and out of control.  I rolled it around in my mind as the word I would choose, and found that it kept appearing in my life.  The most memorable time was at church several weeks ago.

We had a guest pastor and in part of her message she spoke about the Hebrew word Shalom. Most of us are familiar with this word as the Jewish greeting meaning peace, but she said that is only a small part of its meaning.  Here’s what she said:

“Shalom is our created, intended state of being in which we are well with ourself and well with others.”

This is a beautiful concept and I knew I wanted to know more, so I went home and did a quick internet search to see what I could find.  What I found was that the Hebrew root word for Shalom means wholeness.  The word itself conveys a feeling of contentment, completeness, wholeness, and well-being.

Wow.

So, after taking some time to think and pray, I landed on the word peace for this year, with the intent of studying the true meaning of Shalom to find out how God wants me to be, because I think maybe I’m whole just the way I am and I just need to find peace in that.