I first heard of this idea through the Compassion blog, and my friend Juli has recently written a post sharing her experience with this. The idea is to ask God to identify a word through which He can teach and grow us throughout the year. But even if you end up choosing your word, I think if you sincerely ask God to grow you in this area He will.
Here are my words so far~
2009 ~ Love
2011 ~ Quiet
2012 ~ Listen
2013 ~ Slow
It's been pretty cool to see the progression and how one word has led to the next.
Last year I heard of another idea - choosing a certain and specific prayer to focus on for your sponsored child. I wrote about it here. I wrote to my kids and shared the verse that I would pray for them ~ I Corinthians 13:13.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I won't lie to you and tell you I prayed this consistently all year. This year I need to come up with a better idea to keep me focused because I just didn't remember all that well this past year. This is what I'll be praying about this weekend ~ asking God to guide me in choosing a focus for my Compassion kids during 2013.
Even though I wasn't overly successful in 2012, I don't see it as a failure. Even a little bit of focus is better than none at all. And in these last few moments of 2012, I will be praying I Corinthians 13:13 for my Compassion family.
Have you chosen a prayer focus or a word for your sponsored children? If so, I would love to hear about it.
