As I write this in the middle of the afternoon, the wind is blowing and whistling through the trees. I hear a rare few snow flurries faintly tapping at the window. The sun hasn’t come out yet. It’s gray, dreary, and damp. Yet, when I see the date on my watch, I remember it’s a new beginning! It’s a new day. Right now the thought of something new beginning in the dead of winter seems enchanting.
New Year, new beginnings. This January, I don’t know about you, but I want to start fresh.
Part of my shift in this fresh new year is naming a word. My word for 2023 is rooted from the verses in Ephesians: “rooted and established in love…” Paul prays for the Ephesians in the dearest way, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…” (Ephesians 3:17). Paul doesn’t pray for them to do more, work harder, or be better. Instead, he prays for them to understand the love of God for his people. These verses were also on our Christmas card before I chose this word.
Truthfully, I like that this word corresponds to the nature imagery of the words I’ve chosen the last two years (well for 2020 + planting for 2021). More than that though, I’ve had an awakening recently, which is evidenced in part through writing these blog posts. The fog is lifting, prayers are being answered, and my focus is clearing.
In that clarity, I want to live from knowing I am accepted and acceptable, believing it in my very soul.
Just as Paul wanted the Ephesians to believe, I want to believe. Paul’s primary aim is that these precious people know how deep and wide is the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. Somehow, he prays, may they know what no can understand—this love that is too much.
How loved they were. How loved I am. How loved you are.
Last fall, with the encouragement of my Bible study group, we decided to pray these verses over each other and our loved ones for a week—it was utterly life-giving. As I drove home from the gym, I prayed them. As I picked up my kids from school, I prayed them, as I washed dishes and in my prayer journal, I recited them. Praying these verses over my group, my family, my friends, but most of all my children, refocused my brain on something good and lovely. This act of worship filled me with a sense of peace. Contrastingly, I’ve come to understand that my most un-peaceful moments, my worst versions of me, happen when I’m living out of the belief that I’m not loved or liked or pleasing at all. I have believed the lie that I’m not acceptable, and I don’t want to live like that anymore. I imagine that might be true for others, too.
I’ve never thought of myself as a people-pleaser (I don’t rank anywhere close on personality profiles), but I’ve realized that my striving and aiming for perfection has been so that I will see myself as more acceptable, more pleasing. I have been relying on myself to make me better, to save me. Well, not anymore. And what I mean by “not anymore” is “not right this minute” (sigh). I’m sure this will be a long struggle, not over in a sentence written and posted online, but perhaps a lifelong battle. I aim to believe that “I am accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). The more I live life from being rooted and established in love/acceptance, not working to be acceptable, the more I will live and work and create from a healthy perspective. Creating beauty and seeking goodness because of being rooted and established in love, not to be perfect or to be loved. I am committed this year to remembering that I am rooted already.
Ephesians 3:17-20
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us
