I start each calendar year sharing the word I’ve chosen as a focus for the year. Some years I have blogged about my word repeatedly throughout the year, and other times it’s been nothing more than a blip on the blog in January. But I love to circle back to my words each December. Whether my chosen word was impactful or not, it’s a nice way to wrap up the year and reflect on what was.

My word of 2020 was GRACE.

Back in January I wrote:

I love that grace can be both a noun and a verb, something you can have and something you can do. Grace has connections to gracias/ grazie, which means giving thanks. I feel a sense of peace and contentment when I think of giving myself grace and holding space to give others grace. I created two different images to mark my word this year, knowing that grace will come in a variety of shades and meanings throughout 2020.

Looking back, it’s interesting, though not surprising at this point, that the first image I created was what I looked at and used most often in the beginning of 2020.  This image was my desktop picture on my laptop, and a screensaver as well. It’s happy, hopeful, and calming. It makes me smile.

The second image I created seems so much more fitting for the rest of 2020, the year that changed for me on Friday, March 13 when our schools send students home for emergency distance learning due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the corona virus. This image is a little darker, a little colder, and the black and white just gives it an ominous feel.

The word grace was calling to me starting back in September of 2019. I didn’t know why.  I created these images in December of 2019, in preparation for the blog I posted on January 1, 2020 introducing my new word. At the time, I was just going for variety, not knowing when or how I would use the pictures. It’s funny how life sneaks up on you in unexpected ways. I needed grace to get through this year, and I needed to give others lots of grace on this journey as well.  Grace was exactly what I needed in 2020.