Every year, I choose a word to live by. And I weave that word into my every day. I pray on that word. I keep that word with intention in my back pocket everywhere I go. This year the word that I am living by is love.

I've chosen the word love this year, partly because to tell you the truth, I have struggled to love fully in the last few years. And I have an inkling that I'm not the only one.

I have struggled to love fully; the people that are in my life, the people that I serve, those in my community and the very people who I thought that I was loving fully, but then found myself not only not loving, but not being able to express the feelings that I was going through at the time, because there was, in hindsight not a foundation of true love to hold us together through the turmoil of the last 3 years.

I am sharing this with you boldly, with self acceptance of the fact, having reflected on the last few years, having questioned myself, the World, my friends, my family, introspectively and in great detail. I have been living with this struggle, with this tug of war since around the start of 2020 as the last three years played out. I realised very quickly just how divided society actually was and what an illusion we had been living under.  

The World has been left heartbroken by the experience of the last few years and it is easier to ignore the grim outcome of the choices most people made, but here we stand at the beginning of the end for many. The data now speaks louder than the words of those who were silenced and berated and bullied by the ones they thought they loved and for many that not complete love simply was not enough. 

What we all experienced in the last 3 years has been absolutely life changing and there were pivotal points within that expansive experience that ripped apart the fabric of the environment that we were all living in. Now as I look back on that experience, as I reflect on the person that I was and the person that I grew into, I realise that the one main thing that I was deficient in was love.

My love was not complete. If it was not for the love I had within the confines of my own family, my spouse, my son and those closest to me I would have had none.The love I allowed was confined and love in its entirety should be expansive, but I had stopped allowing my love to grow. In truth, I was not doing everything with love. I learnt to be reserved, to hold back, to withdraw and I became lacking in love. The protection I put around my family had become the very vine that was preventing us from flourishing.

I recently read Paul's letter of love from the New Testament. I have reflected on that letter every day by reading it every day for the last couple of weeks, and I am going to continue to reflect on that letter every day until it is mirrored in my heart. Paul wrote:

If I speak in tongues of men and angels but do not have love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have prophetic powers, that is the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose and understand all secret truths and mysteries, and possess all knowledge; and if I have faith so that I can remove mountains but I have not love, I am nothing, a useless nobody.

Even if I dole out all that I have to give food to the poor; And if I surrender my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long as the and is patient and kind. Love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy. It is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

It is not conceited, arrogant, and inflated with pride. It is not rude and does not act and unbecomingly.

Love does not insist on its own rights or in its own way. It is not self seeking. It is not touchy or fretful or resentful. It takes no account of the evil done to it, pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person. It's hopes of fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything without weakening.

Love never fails, never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy it will be fulfilled and pass away; As for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will be superseded by truth.

For our knowledge is fragmentary and our prophecy is fragmentary.

But when the complete and perfect comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away - become antiquated, void and superseded.

When I was a child I talked for like a child I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim reflection of reality as in a riddle or an enigma,  but then, when perfection comes, we shall see in reality and face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I've been fully and clearly known and understood by God.

And so faith, hope, love abide. These are three but the greatest of these is love. (Corinthians 13:1-13)

When I read Paul's letter of love, I resonated with those words. And I'm a great believer that quite often in life, things present themselves when we are ready to hear them. As the saying goes "when the student is ready, the master appears". I believe this from the experiences that I've had over the last few years, the pain, anger, sorrow, disruption and disappointment.

The uncertainty, the immense loss and the forced growth has brought me to this point where I am truly, ready to love. I am ready to love without jealousy, without resent, without fretting, without suffering wrongs and allowing everybody to be exactly who they are in the moment, right now and still love them.

That is not to say that I accept wrongdoings or that I accept evil or that everything is righty-ho. It is to say that I go forth with love in my heart, regardless of these things. I no longer carry the burden of other people's beliefs, other people's actions, other people's wrongdoings. They are none of my business. It's got nothing to do with me what somebody else chooses to believe, to act upon or to follow.

The only thing that is in my power and the only thing that is my responsibility is myself. As I step into this year, 2024, despite what's going on around us, despite what I see in the World, I am going forth with love so that I can create the World that I want to be living in.

To go forth lacking in love, is to go forth with fear, which is the opposite of love. And if we move through extenuating circumstances with fear then no good can happen from that.

And dammit, I want good in the world. For myself, for my family, for my community, for the entire planet. I want good. So I go forwards with love. 

I am committed to this, and I'm grateful for being given Paul's letter of love at just the right moment, when I was not only ready to read it, but I was fully able to understand it. Paul's words resonated so deeply with me, a moment of realisation and gratitude for being given the torch of love to carry on.

And so I wanted to share that with you.

So, I wonder what your word is for the your word is for 2024? What word will you hold in your hand for your clients, your students, your community, for the World and how will you impact your space with the work that you do? 

Thanks for reading.