My 2024 Word of The Year

I'm a Word-of-the-Year Girl...

Because I'm a word girl, and I'm an intentionality girl, and I'm a goals girl.

I know the limitations of a word of the year, I know that it isn't a miraculous replacement for faithfulness (I think it's clear to anyone who has been here for 2.5 seconds that I value faithfulness), and I know that we can't predict the future.

I've seen the posts declaring proudly why people avoid words of the year, and it's honestly a really trivial thing to argue about.

So, if someone investing intentionally into their life and orienting their mind and affections for the coming days bothers you, then keep scrolling, Susan. 😜

For the rest of you, my word for 2024 is Expansionem (yes, it's always in Latin, because of my aforementioned love of language). 

Expansionem is where we derive the English word "expansion", but it literally means to "spread out".

Its etymology indicates a stretching of what is already present, an expanding of something already built, and an increase in capacity layered upon habits and culture already crafted.

I have spent the past several years dismantling my personhood and rebuilding it, by God's grace. I've spent this time fighting for the version of myself that has emerged from the pieces I had to break into, and I've settled into my life and into myself.

I have learned to delight and to fully swell in the goodness I've ben given.

I've learned to be content and to be comfortable in my own skin.

In 2024, I want to expand what I've already built and stretch what I've already become.

I want to stretch my knowledge and understanding, being challenged and pressing into the uncomfortable places where nuance meets my presuppositions.

I want to increase my capacity for beauty and goodness, trying new things and exploring ideas. 

I want to expand my business and my book stack and my recipe cache and my strength and my skills and my delight and my passion and my willingness to try what I've previously turned my nose up at.

I want to stretch in the ways that only a settled person can.

And as always, I want to do it Soli Deo Gloria.