I’m standing in the shower, where most ideas are received with unsuspecting hands. A gift, unsought, but heeded. I think parents can understand this because it’s one of the few places where you can think. The steam, the dim lights, the soothing water, all create a beautiful symbiosis of conduit that God can speak through.

“What’s the word for this year?” The words breathe out, exhale from my lungs.

I scrub in the shampoo, and I listen.

It may not surprise you that I’m one of those weird people who like to have a word that hangs like a banner over the upcoming year. In past years words have been revive, joy, and salt, which played out in incredibly significant and molding ways. So, I guess you could say, if I don’t ask God for a word, I feel I’ve missed out on an opportunity for growth. Failing to ask God what He sees and wants for the upcoming year in this simple way, is like failing to clear a patch of land for Him to cultivate.

I begin to rinse, the water scalding hot.

Then it slides into my heart. The word, the answer to a shower prayer.

I begin to cry.

The word hits me at a gut level, humbling and highlighting an area that God has been speaking over my life, a place He’s been bringing me out of. A howling wilderness that I didn’t know I had walked into and buried my feet in, quietly whispering “Here is where I might die.”

Overly dramatic? Maybe, yes. But I can attest, there is nothing more dramatic, more life-altering, and more harrowing than a time in the wilderness that tests the core of who you are and what you believe.

Before I tell you about the word for 2024, let me first paint a picture of this wilderness of which I speak. It could have many names, but it is full of stinging scorpions and where the sun blisters all living things.

I call this wilderness scarcity.

2023 stands out in my mind as one of the most difficult years of my life thus far. It contained some high moments, but for the most part, it rocked me to my very core. Mostly due to the season of absolute crushing that I found there: the crushing of a dream (an aborted book contract), followed by a season of that dream being crushed into my chest (a developmental edit that was demoralizing), which culminated in a period of (for lack of better words) depression and self-loathing. This unfolded within the context of raising three small children while being a stay-at-home mom, a role in which I also felt like I was drowning.

Everything in my life reflected the core belief that nothing was or even was capable of being enough.

My best effort wasn’t enough, there was not enough time, my meager abilities weren’t enough, my belief in God wasn’t enough, and most of all, I was not enough.

Have you ever been there? This thing of scarcity stares out of your eyes when you look in the mirror, it’s in every glance from a stranger, in every social media post you see. It haunts your dreams, suffocates your breath and sinks its claws into your soul in an inescapable way.

It was in every word I tried to write, in every post I tried to post, and, in every utterance, I tried to make. So, I did the only thing I felt like I could, I stopped doing it all for a while. There are those of you who saw into my wilderness, and I want to take a minute to say “thank you.” Thank you for speaking words of identity and love into my heart and my work. Your words, your texts and your phone calls were bright places for me.

Many others may have weathered this season with barely a blip on their radar and probably many have, but I’m finding the wilderness we walk into is often tailor made for us. The crushing there is so fine-tuned to our greatest weaknesses, the weeds that grow around us are our favorite variety and the lies spoken in the howling wind, are the ones we’ve secretly told ourselves for years.

Something suffocating happens in this place, this wilderness of scarcity, if you will. It’s so sickly self-absorbed, it’s so self-condemning, it’s so wretched with its lies.

Some of the greatest that howl through the wind sound like:

You don’t matter

your words don’t matter,

nobody cares,

there are already too many voices,

too many books,

too many posts,

too many people creating,

too many people trying and failing.

too many people speaking into the void.

Your worth as a person is measured by how you are received by others behind a screen, by the book deal, by the likes, and by the applause of people you may never meet. Your worth as a person is measured by your inability to measure up in any area of your life, with the measuring stick you alone hold.

How did I escape this place, you may ask?

Please hear me, dear friend. This isn’t an “I want to try to tie God into this piece” blog post. I wouldn’t dare to write one word if the words He spoke over me hadn’t lured me from the wilderness of scarcity. If His soft words of love hadn’t been more powerful than the words of the one who sought to destroy my soul. If His quiet truth hadn’t held the ability to vanquish every weighty, convincing, and captivating lie, from which I walked and am walking from still.

He spoke a phrase over me again and again, until the howling wilderness faded, and His words rang in my heart, ever louder, ever surer until I began to believe them. Until they replaced the ones ringing in my ears. Until they became my sure footing.

“Your words make me happy; your life makes me happy; you make me happy.”

If the God of the universe delights in me, the one who created a baby’s smile, the sunset and a waterfall, then what else matters? I laugh. I cry. I dance. I write.

Then He gave me Matthew 11: 28-30 in the Passion Translation and it was like I was reading it for the first time:

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden?

 Come to me. I will refresh your life,

for I am your oasis.

Simply join your life with mine.

Learn my ways and you’ll discover

that I am gently, humble,

easy to please.

You will find refreshment and rest in me.

For all that I require of you will be pleasant

and easy to bear.”

Can I just tell you something, friend? Speaking God’s truth over yourself is very different than pulling a list of positive affirmations from the internet. It’s even different than speaking the truth of what your dearest friends and family members believe about you. It’s different than telling yourself the things that you wished you believed about yourself so you could just, finally, once and for all become a functioning adult again.

Speaking God’s truth over your life is the exact opposite of the tailor-made wilderness, it is a tailor-made oasis. They are words to water your scorched soul, your forsaken dreams and resurrect your identity. It is the truth about who you are and more importantly Whose you are and what He thinks of you, that hold the ability to transform you. They become an invitation to participate in the assignment to which you were called.

You see, His words produce movement, whereas the wilderness produces paralysis.

They are more powerful than any lie, any deep-rooted weed and any desolate horizon. They keep you moving forward, instead of your feet buried in cracked ground, as you curse your life.

So onward I move, onward I press, wrapping His words around my neck. I’m writing again and God is giving me new ideas, fresh perseverance to finish the book that I thought would kill my creativity and a new confidence that can only be forged amid a fire.

He’s given me a new word, like a new song, to sing over the days ahead when the wilderness calls and the horizon is bleak, as surely it will be at times.

The word He gave me is, abundance.

It cascades over me like the water over my head, piercing me to my heart, washing me clean, filling me with hope.

Forward I go, with a belief that I have an abundance of time, an abundance of creativity, an abundance of words, an abundance of grace for myself and my family, an abundance of peace, joy, truth, and an abundance of His presence.

So onward I go,

Onward I press,

My confidence growing,

My vision becoming clearer.

The darkness behind,

The wilderness fading,

His words are on my tongue.

A pen is in my hand,

I am writing a story,

as He writes me.

In bold ink, He scribbles my name,

the ink that will not be washed away,

that echoes of eternity.

In ink smudged with His fingertips

The lines of His palm

Press into my soul

So onward I write.

Onward I go.