One Word

Let me begin by saying that I am already second-guessing myself and this is only the first sentence.  The thought that someone I don't know may be reading these words soon after I post this makes me have all kinds of second and third (and, heck, tenth!) thoughts about doing this.  I have never before done any kind of link-up that might purposely bring people to read my blog.  Yes, I do understand that posting to an online blog instead of writing in a diary I keep under my mattress means there is a greater chance people will happen upon my writing and read it, but this is new and different for me.  Only a limited number of my friends and family even know that I write a blog.  So this is all a bit nerve wracking for me, but a new year calls for doing new things.

Now that I have that out of the way, I'll also say that I realize I am a bit late to the party.  I only found out about this two days ago when it showed up on my Facebook news feed from the "A Deeper Story" Facebook page.  At first I was going to follow along without participating, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try it.

Quite a while back I wrote a post in which I explained that I felt as though I was unraveling in more than one sense of the word.  I wrote, "I might be unraveling in the sense that I feel like I'm coming apart, but I am not going to continue that way. I'm making an intentional effort to unravel the complexities of my life, faith, and decisions into something clear and understandable."  That was in 2009 and I feel as though along the way I've become stuck on the taking apart to the point that making the complexities clear and understandable went by the wayside a little.

When I saw this One Word idea, the word "Unravel" immediately came to mind.  It didn't take long, however, to rule it out.  This is a new year and I need a new word.  I need something to show that I am ready to turn a page and figure out what to do with all the threads of my life I've unraveled into these "strands of something" that somehow need to fit together into a clear and understandable whole.

And then my word came to me:

Weave
transitive verb

- To interweave or combine (elements) into a complex whole.
 - To introduce (another element) into a complex whole; to work in.
 - To produce by elaborately combining elements
 - To unite in a coherent whole

Of all these definitions, "to unite in a coherent whole" most powerfully represents this word to me.  I've spent all these years trying to unravel, to question, to deconstruct what I think and what I believe, and it is time to start figuring out how it fits back together.  Not that I will be complete or that the questions will disappear or that I won't still be on a journey, but I need to start trying to see the bigger picture again before I start losing some of the vital components.  I need to begin uniting these various strands into a coherent, albeit complex, whole.

Yes. Weave is my word and to weave is my goal.  I will weave with words and with thoughts and with experiences.  I will interweave and introduce and produce and unite.  And even though there may be the occasional need to rearrange or reevaluate, my hope is that by the end of this year I will have something more coherent than these armfuls of unraveled strands.



God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. - Psalm 18:20 (MSG)