Bloom.
My word for 2020.
After taking Dayspring’s Word of the Year quiz, bloom was the word generated for me, and I liked it.
This choice of word wouldn’t surprise you if you searched my picture files. The number of flower photos I’ve taken over the years is astounding, their delicate beauty inviting me to draw close and linger.
But my love of flowers isn’t the main reason I adopted “bloom” as my word for 2020.
It complemented my verse for the year:
I am the vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:5 (NASB)
Abide.
A word that’s caused me confusion, not in its meaning—remain—but in how to do it.
How do I abide in Christ?
Jesus is the vine, and I am the branch; if I’m separated from my Lifeline, I wither and die.
If I abide in Him and He in me, I bloom. From my blooms come fruit.
Surrender.
That’s how I’ll abide. Bloom where I’m planted—live in the present moment, content and grateful for the place God has me, surrendering the unknown future.
If I abide—surrender myself entirely—in Christ,
I bloom.
And maybe, like the way I gravitate toward the beauty of flowers, others will draw closer to me because of Him and linger.