My 2024 Word of the Year

Picking a word of the year has become an exciting part of my new year traditions. If you haven’t listened to Hey Y’all’s original chat about our words for 2023 you can check it out here. You can also check out our follow up for 2023 (Part 1 and Part 2) and our new words for 2024 (Part 1 and Part 2). Simply put, a word of the year is a guiding principle or thought for the next twelve months and for the Hey Y’all crew, it’s an area of spiritual growth that we are looking forward to the Lord working in throughout the year. 

My first word of the year in 2022 was something I knew I needed to work on… being “intentional”. Last year, my word of the year was something that I felt convicted of which you can hear the full explanation of on the podcast but I knew I was not living with the right “expectations” in the Lord. This year however, my word of the year started “appearing” as early as the spring and I recognized it in the summer. Everywhere I went it seemed this word was slapping me in the face. The devotion I was reading, the suggested speaker for a women’s event, the K-Love DJs, a sign at Hobby Lobby, my sorority sister’s Facebook post. Literally, everywhere I looked was this word and it wasn’t a word I was particularly looking forward to exploring which I’m guessing is why the Lord had to start early. Ha!

Years ago I wrote a post on what I considered to be one of the hardest commandments in the Bible which can be found in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Obviously, the “be still” part was my struggle. Out of Martha and Mary, I’m definitely Martha. Back in April of 2023, I wrote about being exhausted and in need of help. I had been diagnosed with an auto-immune condition called Hashimoto’s Disease which took me from a one woman show to a lethargic mess who clearly needed rest but was struggling with actually doing it. This is when I first started seeing this year’s word, though at the time I didn’t quite recognize what it meant. As I went on through the year, I saw it more and more, and unlike the past, I recognized that the Father was trying to get my attention. 

It was the moment I was sitting in a Women’s Ministry planning meeting that it clicked. Someone mentioned a potential guest speaker, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, and her book “Sacred Rest”. I pulled my phone out that minute and ordered the book. Ironically, I didn’t start for about two weeks because I was too busy. I did eventually get it read and boy, oh boy, did it speak to my soul! I reviewed it last fall and you can check that out here. 

By the end of that book, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that 2024 was going to be about “rest” and I assumed it was Psalms 46:10 that was going to be my guiding verse. I was sure of that until December but for that story and why my actual verse of the year changes my perspective on rest and makes me a bit nervous, check out this episode of Hey Y’all: The Podcast.