Last year I was anticipating.   Anticipating from a positive perspective since my nature is to be negative.   It was hard, I won’t lie.   But I tried.   And I eventually found myself anticipating God to show up – show up in the most dire, sad, frustrating moments of my year.

And He did.

So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I asked Him what He wanted me to focus on this year.   I wish I could say there was a booming voice from Heaven telling me to be present.   But yeah, umm, that didn’t happen.   Instead I thought I originally heard the word “wait.”

And I surely wasn’t happy about that.

Wait?!?!

Really?!!?

GAH!!

But as I was sitting in our living room the other night, working on the computer, using my phone and playing with my Kindle Fire, ahem, I clearly heard Him say, “be present, Mary.   Be present this next year – fully present.”

Parousia

Greek for “personal presence” – it’s actually a derivative of , awww heck.   Here’s the definition for you:

[Greek parousi, presence, Parousia, from parousa, feminine present participle of pareinai, to be present : para-, beside; see para-¹ + einai, to be; see es- in Indo-European roots.]

When I heard Him tell me to be present, I knew that was more than “OneWord” so I looked it up and found this.

{sigh}

So this is me

admitting to you

that I’m not sure how to be present

fully present.

It doesn’t sound easy to me.

Not in this world of distractions,

busyness, work, life.

But somehow, I have to.

I have to learn to be present -

not only with I’m with them,

but even more so with Him.

So maybe you’ll join me this year?   Do you have OneWord that you can focus on all year long?   I’ll be posting periodically about it, talking through it, the ups, downs, successes, failures, as 2012 moves on by (at warp speed, I’m sure).

Happy New Year everyone!