2017 is my third year picking a word for my year. In 2012 my word was Intentional. I stuck with it for a couple of months and then it just kind of fell off my radar. 

Then in 2016, I decided to try again and my word for the year was Joy. And it had such a big impact on my year. It helped guide my focus, my goals, and my direction for the year. While we had some ups and downs, I can honestly say that my 2016 was dominated by joy. Or at least learning some really powerful lessons about joy. 

I'm hoping in the next few weeks to share some of the big lessons and things I learned from my year of joy. But today, I'm excited to share my word for 2017.

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Create.

I thought a lot about my word. I was first thinking about the word GRACE. I toyed with this being my word for 2016 as well. Giving grace to others, giving grace to myself, learning more about God's grace and how it plays out in our lives. I think grace will still have a big part of my year, but ultimately I landed on Create as my word for this year. 

Create

to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes.

to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art oran invention.

I think this hits on several things I want to focus on this year. Here's why I chose Create as my word: 

Craving Some Creativity 

It all started in 2015. Most of that year was spent in survival mode for me. The first half of the year I had a very difficult twin pregnancy which resulted in two very happy and healthy 7lb boys. But wow, was the last three months of that pregnancy rough! Then the second half of 2015 was busy spent surviving life with four kids, 2.5 years old and younger. 

Between four little kids and a rough recovery from a c section in which I lost a ton of blood (I had no idea your blood levels could have such an effect on your energy). 

With all of that going on and then having FOUR kids, under three....the remainder of 2015 was a blur of exhaustion. Then in December of 2015 we took the gigantic leap and Jason quit his job. As of January 2016 we officially became a work at home family running our ministry here full time.

So then that moved us into 2016 which was my year of joy. My focus was to start to dig out of survival mode and learn to live with more joy in my home, in my marriage, with my kids, and in my life. Throughout all my study, I ended up developing my free course, Finding Joy in Your Home - Essential Habits for Christian Homemakers and it has since impacted over 5,000 and counting who've gone through it. 

I am so thankful that God led me to have this focus on joy throughout the year because in May, we got a gigantic surprise! As my older twins were not even 3.5 years old and my younger twins were just barely 9 months old, we found out we were expecting again. 

With my history of twins, our plan was to wait longer between these pregnancies. But God had different plans and all we could do was face our future and these close pregnancies with joy. 

Over the summer, we found out that indeed, God's plans are amazing! We are pregnant with one baby girl. And as of the day I'm writing this in early January, we are eagerly awaiting her arrival any day now. 

Heading into a New Year 

And now, as we head into 2017, I still have parts of my life that are living in survival mode,