2021 Word of the Year: Grace
Written: January 12, 2021
My 2020 word of the year was faith and it was remarkable how fitting that word was for the year. We took huge leaps of faith on where we live, where we work, with our finances and with Hannah’s daycare situation. Being the planner that I am, it was only early summer of 2020 when I thought ‘I wonder what 2021’s word will be.’ And to my surprise, it was almost an instant ‘Grace.’ Then about a month later, I bought a new journal to write in that said Faith on it. It came with two other journals; one that said “Grace” and one that said “Hope.” “Hope” sounded more fun, and well, hopeful after 2020. But alas, here we are with Grace.
You probably wonder why I am not uber excited about the word Grace. I mean it’s a beautiful word and being a Christian, it’s a pretty popular word that brings peace to a lot of people. But I am not a gracious person all the time. Not with myself and not with others. And when I first thought about this word last year, I thought about it in terms of myself and I knew it would be difficult because I am hard on myself. I expect a lot out of myself and it has definitely shown in motherhood. I often hear about moms beating themselves up because of the world’s expectations. And I do too because I hold myself to a higher standard on everything. When I had trouble breastfeeding and quit, I did not show myself grace. And it wasn’t because I went in thinking I needed to breastfeed. I was formula fed and turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. But I beat myself up and felt like crap for not being able to do it longer. I did this with many situations in early motherhood because I thought everything should come natural. I get why I probably need to focus on showing myself Grace, but I’m not super excited about it because it will be a challenge.
And then just to make things more interesting, I was praying recently about whether this was the right word for me to focus on this year. I was reminded it is not just grace for me, it is grace for others too. Now if you are a friend or family member reading this, you probably think I have this down because I do show my friends and family grace more often than not. But when it comes to working with others or being a customer, I have high expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I am super nice and people I’ve done business with probably don’t even know how high my expectations are. But I expect a lot when I chose to work with someone. One example is a photographer who did a great job on pictures years ago, but gave me a completely unrealistic timeline on when I would get the pictures back. She said two weeks and it took well over a month. I was kind, but I kept asking after the deadline and I did not use her services again in the future. On the flip side, I found an amazing photographer in Sidney through Doak Media and will recommend them to everyone because they keep their deadlines and do great work. So when people meet my high standard, I am extra willing to let people know, but when people do not, I am done with their services.
Maybe this isn’t the biggest issue in the world because when you are paying for something, you want it done right and you want clear communication. But I know that this is not the kindest way to live and it also does not represent a life like Jesus would live. So my goal is to give second chances and to realize there may be more to the story than what I see. If someone takes longer to get back to me than I expect, maybe there is something going on that is a bigger priority. I will not ignore people not doing their jobs, but I will try to give second chances and give people a chance to explain. I would also like to work on not expecting everyone to always be a rockstar at everything, including myself, because we all have to start somewhere and get better with practice.
2020 showed us we could all use a little more grace, especially with everything going on in the world right now. I hope this inspires all of you to give a little grace to yourself or someone else when the opportunity arises.
