Last year I stumbled upon the One word 365 community. With a 2-month-old, a not-yet-2 and my maternity leave ending I didn’t think it was the time for turning over a new leaf. This appealed to me. I chose the word grace, what a gift it has been. I learned so much about what grace really looked like, that grace with strings attached isn’t grace at all. But mostly, I learned to rest in God’s grace, to extend the grace that I was so willing to give others to myself. I learned that God’s grace is abundant, more than just enough to get by, enough to rest in, luxuriate in even. Grace was like a present that I opened all year long.
This year my word is unashamed. In many ways I think it took a year of grace to get me to the place where I could choose to embrace unashamed. If grace was a noun, a present I carried around, unashamed is an adjective, a posture I want to adopt.
It isn’t that I have a lot of shame in who I am or the choices that I make when I think about them, but somewhere along the way it became my natural posture. I second guess, I keep things quiet, I am embarrassed by my desires, I don’t want to have needs. In real life I am a chronic apologizer. If you call me out on it, I will tell you I am sorry. And I cover it all up with a thick layer of oh so confident, isn’t that funny.
This is the year that thick layer of oh so confident, isn’t that funny seeps all the way through to the depths of my heart. This is the year I will stand tall before my friends, before my family, before myself, before my God.
2013 is the year that I learn to fully embrace who the Lord has created me to be. I will walk the path the Lord has for me without apology or excuses, not because it is the road for everyone but because it is the one He has laid out for me. I will unabashedly nurture and share the gifts I’ve been given. I will not be ashamed that sometimes this takes promoting myself. I am proud of the things the Lord has given me to do. I will not apologize when those things aren’t what other people think I should be doing. I will stand unashamed, in the choices I make, in the person I am and who I am becoming. I will bare my soul, shrug off my covering and expose my whole self. I will stand soul-naked and unashamed before my God.
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One word 365 is a much bigger community than this space right here. I know many of you don’t blog, but I would still encourage you to choose a word and let me know what it is. I would love to encourage you in it.
Abby Norman 
Your blogs really speak to me. I just want to say thank you. Last year was my year of grace as well, it is interesting to read your blogs. Some days you speak exactly what my heart needs to hear. The end of last year, from October on, God began to take me on a journey of living behind shame. Shame had been my best friend for as long as I could remember, and since October God has been teaching me how to be unashamed. For me it looks a lot different than what it sounds like for you. Keep writing. You really encourage and bless many!!
Yes! What a good year! Do you have a word for this year?
Not yet. But I will be praying and asking God for that word. 🙂
I just finished a book you might find helpful on your unashamed quest. It is called Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, a professor at the U of Houston. She advocates the importance of being vulnerable and not choosing to hide behind perfectionism, or whatever other wall we have chosen like being funny or false confidence. It has a lot to address all human relationships including families, teacher/student relationships and business relationships. By choosing to be vulnerable and daring greatly we put ourselves in the arena where we can change the world around us, even though we risk failure. It is worth the risk. The world desperatly needs the ‘unashamed-and-vulnerable-Abby.’
Thank you! I am putting it on my kindle list now!
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