Author

Lois Flowers

My One Word for 2020

by Lois Flowers January 14, 2020

by Lois Flowers

I love reading about the words that other people choose to guide them through each year. I also enjoy the process of choosing a word for myself (although it might be more accurate to say that, inevitably, the words choose me).

For some reason, though, actually writing about my new word for 2020 has been a challenge. It’s been on my to-do list for weeks, but other things keep crowding it out.

While this might be an indication that I need to ditch my word and find another one, I think it’s more like a real-time illustration of the very word I’ve chosen.

As is my custom, I started pondering my new word in October sometime. Instead of making a list of potential One Words, I typically just ask God to direct my thoughts and then see what comes to mind.

There’s no formula; I usually just know.

This time was a little different, though, because the first word that landed in my heart was more like a stepping stone. A rather bleak stepping stone, honestly.

Empty.

When this word occurred to me, I wanted to push it away. While it’s arguably relevant to a few parts of my life these days, it didn’t seem like the kind of word I’d want hanging around for an entire year—especially not this particular year.

Before I had a chance to get too discouraged, however, another word came to mind.

The opposite of empty.

Full.

This word conjures up a variety of scenarios, doesn’t it? A full moon, for example. A garden in full bloom, a full stomach or a full plate (literal or rhetorical). We can have our arms full, our quivers full or our cups full (to some degree or another, depending on where we fall on the pessimist/optimist scale).

The scriptures speak of God being full of compassion, grace and truth, and of the earth being full of His glory and unfailing love. (Psalm 116:5, John 1:14, Isaiah 6:3, Psalm 33:5) In stark contrast to God’s beautiful character, the Bible also mentions a variety of sinful elements our human mouths can be full of, including boasting, cursing, bitterness, deadly poison, lies and threats. (Psalm 94:4, Romans 3:14, James 3:8, Psalm 10:7)

Since Matthew 12:34 tells us that “the mouth speaks what the heart is full of,” it should be our goal each and every year to keep tabs on our hearts to ensure that our conversation will “always be full of grace” and “seasoned with salt.” (Colossians 4:6)

As I consider the word full in relation to my life in 2020, though, the one verse that keeps coming to mind is John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

I know there’s no way to predict what that’s going to look like in the coming months. The abundant nature of the life that Jesus promises isn’t dependent on our circumstances; it’s dependent on His presence.

I’m hopeful, however.

I’m hopeful that the One who began a good work in us through the sad and hard events of 2019 will continue it this year. (Philippians 1:6) And that whatever “life to the full” entails for us—individually and collectively—we will come through on the other side of 2020 with fresh stories to tell of God’s faithfulness, comfort and compassion.

♥ Lois

The abundant nature of the life that Jesus promises isn’t dependent on our circumstances; it’s dependent on His presence. Share on X

Note: I’m a little late to the One Word party, but if you’ve chosen a word for 2020, I’d love for you to share it in the comments (with a link too, if you’ve written about it).

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

January 14, 2020 42 comments

When Keeping Christmas is a Struggle

by Lois Flowers December 17, 2019

by Lois Flowers

Last year, keeping Christmas saved me.

I spent many December days running around like a chicken with my head cut off—to see my dad at the hospital, in rehab and then finally in long-term care with my mom; to his lawyer’s office, his banks, the investment broker’s office and my parents’ home in a neighboring town; to the places I needed to go to keep my own household going through the holidays.

December 17, 2019 18 comments

When It’s Hard to Keep Praying

by Lois Flowers December 10, 2019

by Lois Flowers

The other day, as I was vacuuming up remodeling debris in the kitchen and Christmas tree needles in the living room, I was thinking about a set of circumstances over which I have no control.

As often happens when I’m vacuuming, one thought led to another and soon a second situation that also is totally out of my hands—one that I’ve been praying about for what seems like a really long time—came to mind.

December 10, 2019 20 comments

Like it Never Even Happened

by Lois Flowers December 3, 2019

by Lois Flowers

A few months ago, an advertising message on the side of a truck caught my eye.

It was for one of those remediation companies that comes into your house after your basement has flooded to clean up the mess. They pull up the soggy carpet, remove the baseboard, drill air holes along the bottom of the drywall and run large, loud fans for several days to dry everything out.

Their slogan—the phrase that caught my eye as I was driving past—summed up the desired end result in five simple words: “Like it never even happened.”

When I saw the truck, I was on my way to meet a friend who had reached out to me after both my parents died last spring. She knew a bit of what I was feeling; her father died several years ago after battling cancer, and her mom passed away unexpectedly in 2018.

When I noticed the slogan, she was more than a year into her most recent grief journey; mine had only just begun. Given the choice, though, I think both of us would prefer some kind of sure-fire rehabilitation process that would return our hearts to what they were before—“Like it never even happened.”

That’s not how it works, of course. Time marches on, but sadness, loss and memories leave indelible marks. Life eventually returns to normal, but the new normal is not like the old normal.

And maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing. Psalm 147:3 says that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” We’re not given a timetable or syllabus for this. In the process, we might find ourselves irrevocably changed, in ways we never could have imagined.

Even so, as our wounds slowly begin to heal, we gradually become more equipped to relate to and comfort others whose pain or grief is fresher.

I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of comfort many times during the last few years—in the church lobby, over coffee at Panera, driving down the road with an ear pressed to my phone, even in the cracker aisle at the grocery store.

When I see tears glimmering in a friend’s eyes as I talk, I know she’s really hearing me. She might not be able to feel all the nuances of my pain, but she is honestly trying to understand.

In a world that insists on turning despite the inertia that has invaded my heart, that is a huge gift.

There may never come a point—this side of heaven, anyway—where we can confidently switch our grief status to “over it.” With God, though, pain always has a purpose. We can’t act like it never happened, but if we are willing, He will always provide us with ways to use it for His glory.

♥ Lois

This post is part of a collection called Help for Parent Loss. To read more, please click here.

As our wounds slowly begin to heal, we gradually become more equipped to relate to and comfort others whose pain or grief is fresher. Share on X With God, pain always has a purpose. Share on X

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

December 3, 2019 10 comments

What I Learned This Fall

by Lois Flowers November 26, 2019

by Lois Flowers

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and although the writer in me doesn’t usually don’t agree, I have to say that the following photo pretty much sums up life in the Flowers household right now.

We’ve been remodeling our kitchen this fall. Randy is doing much of the work himself (with targeted assistance from wife and daughters), but we’ve also had workers in and out of the house quite a bit these last few weeks. If you’ve ever done any extensive home improvement projects, you can imagine the smells, sounds and dust.

Oh, the dust. It’s definitely not my favorite, but I’m learning to let it go (which means letting it stay, for now). I’m also trying to lean into the season despite all the new feels that are coming with these particular holidays, which is why it seemed fitting to write “Happy Thanksgiving” on the thick layer of dust on the piano in my living room.

Life is sometimes lived among the dust, you know? I figure I might as well embrace it, along with these other learnings from the months just past.

• I don’t love workbooks anymore.

My GriefShare class came with a workbook. I took one home after the first session, but it sat in the same spot on my kitchen counter for the next three weeks. I didn’t open it once, so I brought it back to class and returned it to the facilitator.

I used to be a big fan of workbooks. I’ve even saved several from Bible studies I’ve done over the years. But apparently, they’re not my thing anymore, or at least not right now. I have other ways of processing, other ways of working through the loss of my parents. And I’m OK with that.

• There’s a time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.

My flowerbeds were pretty much neglected during the summer, but as the gardening season neared an end, I decided to tackle some work that I have been wanting to do for years.

My procrastination had more to do with not knowing what to plant rather than a lack of time, but I finally made up my mind. I went to my favorite lawn and garden center a few times and eventually came home with five fast-growing juniper bushes that are now planted along my back fence.

Before this could happen though, we had to remove the large and unwieldy rootball of an old lilac bush. Such work is not for the faint of heart, for sure. It took Randy several hours and various types of power and hand tools to wrestle the thing out of the ground.

If I’ve learned anything this last year, it’s to hold my plans—even my gardening plans—very loosely. But hope is still a thing, right? And right now, that’s the word that comes to mind when I think about what next spring will bring out in my flowerbeds.

• Dads are important to their teenage daughters.

I’ve heard read this and heard it from other moms; now I’m seeing how very true it is in my own house. I don’t know when it all started, but these days, Randy is on the receiving end of a whole lot of love from both of his girls. And as a former teenage girl who dearly loved her own dad, it warms my heart like nothing else.

• I’m not sad about the senior year.

Maybe it’s because other weights are pressing on my mind right now, but I’m not feeling overly nostalgic about all the senior things that seem to be coming one right after another. (At least not yet, anyway. Come spring, as graduation approaches, I may be singing a completely different tune.)

I know I’ll miss Lilly next year, but she’s still here now. Beyond that, as I’ve learned from friends with adult children, the parenting doesn’t stop when your children graduate from high school. They might think they know everything for a while, but they don’t stop needing us.

• They need us in different ways, though.

As my girl continues to grow and become more independent, I’m noticing a shift in my role as her mom. Rather than being a primary decision maker in her life, I’m becoming much more of a sounding board. She was a verbal processor already, so the word flow can be a lot at times. But it seems to be another normal and healthy rite of passage, so I think my ears are up for it.

• When it comes to combating the social media time suck, “Out of sight, out of mind” is a good strategy.

I don’t have email or social media apps on my phone. A while back, though—when I noticed I was wasting quite a bit of time aimlessly picking up my iPad to check messages and Instagram—a small change made a big difference. I started to check my social media platforms while I’m eating breakfast and lunch, and then I put the tablet in a drawer. If it’s not lying out on the kitchen island, I’m much less inclined to pick it up throughout the day.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that our ongoing kitchen renovation has gotten me all kinds of distracted from this new practice. (When I first started writing this post, the countertops subcontractor was using some kind of noisy power tool and the whole house smelled strongly of adhesive. Today, my countertops are covered with protective paper and the subfloor is littered with debris from the backsplash work that Randy did over the weekend.(

But the out-of-sight-out-of-mind trick does work, and I’m looking forward to being more disciplined about it once the dust settles (literally) in my house.

That’s what I’ve learned this fall. How about you?

♥ Lois

Life is sometimes lived among the dust. Share on X

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, Let’s Have Coffee, Emily Freeman, Faith on Fire, Faith ‘n Friends and Grace & Truth.

November 26, 2019 24 comments

The Right Word at the Right Time

by Lois Flowers November 19, 2019

by Lois Flowers

It might be a little early to be talking about choosing a new word of the year for 2020. But perhaps it’s not too soon to take a quick look back, to briefly examine how my OneWord for this year helped me in ways I never expected.

Truth be told, I never got around to writing about the difference my word for 2018 made in my life, so maybe I’ll just combine the two. They go together, my words for the last two years, although this is not something I could have predicted or seen in advance.

Last year, my word was bold. This year, humble.

At first glance, they sound a bit antithetical. They don’t typically go hand-in-hand, at least not in my mind.

But I needed them both. In the order they were given to me.

When the word bold first came to me, my first thought was, You have got to be kidding me.

I never would have picked that word out of any line up to describe myself—how I was at the time or how I hoped to be some day.

But God knew.

There’s a line from a favorite Casting Crowns song that talks about “the one thing you didn’t see coming.” Over the last few years, it wasn’t just one thing for my family. It was one thing after another, culminating in a rapid succession of losses that none of us could have ever imagined.

When your parents revise their wills and set you up as the one who will manage all the things if something were to happen to them, you just say, “Sure, I can do that,” and go on your merry way. You don’t really expect that in four or five years, you actually will be needed to step in and do it.

In my case, though, that’s exactly what happened.

As I helped my parents navigate some significant challenges during what turned out to be the last years of their lives, the word bold helped me to be confident. To do what needed to be done, even though I’d never done anything like it before. To trust my gut. To pray for God to direct our steps, one after another.

Especially in the last month of 2018 and throughout the first half of 2019, when my dad’s health and normal way of life completely fell apart, and then both my parents passed away. (Read more here and here.)

We all have our ways of doing things. What looks like boldness for me might not look like boldness for someone else.

I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t always handle every task right or well. There are things I would do differently if I could hit rewind and try again.

That’s not an option, of course. I’m learning that part of the grieving process includes working through those regrets, realizing I did the best I could at the time, and (in some cases) determining to do things differently if I’m ever placed in a similar situation again.

Which brings me to humble, my word for 2019.

I recognize the irony here. It seems weird to try to explain how I practiced humility over the last year, if I could even think of a specific example.

I can talk generally, though. I can tell you that, as I tried to juggle all my parents’ affairs, the word humble quietly guided my heart, my mind, my reactions and my decisions.

I have six siblings—five older and one younger. They all love my parents and wanted the best for them. They were—and still are, I think—very supportive of my efforts.

But, as anyone who has been through a difficult family season can attest, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by opinions and even to misunderstand motivations, especially when you’re stressed and exhausted and grieving.

I didn’t always practice humility well, or at all. But I did try to think the best of others and their intentions.

I tried to let humility inform the way I shared information, solicited feedback, made suggestions and responded to input.

Most importantly, at least for me, I consciously resisted the urge to defend myself or justify my actions. The truth is, my family didn’t need (or ask for) a 10-point outline of how I came to every decision. They simply needed me to take care of our parents’ affairs.

Bolstered by their prayers (not to mention their actual physical presence at the most serendipitous times), I tried to do just that.

I’m a word girl, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise me how God consistently uses the words He gives me each year to prepare my heart and pave the way for what He has planned for me in the coming months.

And maybe it won’t surprise you to know that I’ve already chosen my word for next year. As usual, I don’t really know what it means, this new OneWord that I’m looking forward to sharing with you in a few weeks.

But if history repeats itself, as it often does, it will be just what I need to guide my thoughts and actions in 2020.

♥ Lois

We all have our ways of doing things. What looks like boldness for me might not look like boldness for someone else. Share on X

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, Let’s Have Coffee, Faith on Fire, Faith ‘n Friends and Grace & Truth.

Photo by Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash

November 19, 2019 14 comments