One Little Word for 2017

I'm an extroverted, type A personality. I embrace being a loud laugher and love to talk.
For a period in my life, I was not good at.all. with silence, being still and quiet...with myself and even more so with God.
As I look ahead to the coming year, I always love to choose a word to keep grounded and focused; something to challenge me in the coming year.
Last year my word was cultivate. The year before that my word was serenity.
My word for 2017 is stillness.

Over the last few weeks several things in reading and prayer have come up that are showing me I need to cultivate more stillness in my life.
I find myself continuing to come back to these two passages in Scripture:

• Be still and know that I am God.  -Psalm 46:10
• The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still.  -Exodus 14:14

In the last six months I have begun to carve out time day to start and end my day with silence and meditation. Deep breathing helps me focus and let go of the distractions running around in my brain. Slowly repeating a word or prayer helps me re-focus when my mind starts to chatter again.

Living on my own for the first time in my life, getting used to more silence is something new for me. But more and more, I am seeing how much I need it. How much my soul actually aches and craves it.

It is one thing to be still physically but a completely different thing to still your mind and spirit. And while I am growing in this area, I see how much more stillness I need in my life; relationship with myself, God, and others.

Life, relationships, and my mind can very quickly become noisy and fragmented. I am looking forward to more stillness in my life...more just being, instead of always doing.

Do you have a word to guide and inspire you for 2017? What does it mean to you?
Whatever your dreams, hopes, or goals are for 2017, remember that you can do hard things.