Happy New Year

Welcome to the new year and a fresh start!  In the past few years I have chosen a word for the year, and it has been interesting to see how that specific word impacts me throughout the 12 months.  Last year my word was "perspective", and I think (hope) that my perspective has shifted from being rather narrow and fear centered, to becoming more focused on God and His bigger view of things.  I went through the book "Jesus Calling" each day, looking up the scripture passages at the end of each day's reading.  I was surprised at how many of the entries revolved around "do not fear" passages.  But given how prone I am to fear, it turned out to be a very good thing.

This year my word came in a surprising way -- a dream in early December.  I hadn't even begun to think about a word for the upcoming year when I dreamed that someone gave me an envelope with this word printed on the front.  Before I had a chance to discover what was inside the envelope, I woke up.  I was very disappointed that I couldn't delve further into the word in my dream, but then I felt a gentle nudge reminding me that I could spend a whole year exploring this word.

My word for 2015 is "treasure".  There are so many directions this word can take me, and I think it will prove to be a wonderful theme for this year.  I have begun two practices to help me mine the treasure God sends me each day.  The first is keeping a gratitude journal.  I have done it in the past, and I know it is a great discipline.  The second is on my Instagram account.  I want to post a photo each day that expresses a treasure I have realized.  I am hoping to post these photos to my blog once a week and tell a little bit about them.  Here are the first ones:

 It was a sunny day (not common in the winter in Chicago) and the sunlight reflected on the snowflake design in this gift box and onto my kitchen counter.  It was a delightful design to come upon in the morning.

This is part of a calligraphy piece I did to hang in a prayer room in our church.  It was great fun to create this, and I promise I will show the rest of the piece one of these days, as well as share about this awesome room that we have set up.

 It's my honey!  We were out all day going in different directions, and we enjoyed winding down at Steak and Shake.  Of course Don had to have a shake.  So I guess I ate at Steak and Water.  :-)

 We had a dusting of snow this morning, and driving to church was like a fairy land.  This photo doesn't do it justice, but it was just a quick cell phone shot, and it does convey the story.

In case you want to follow me on Instagram, my name is Sunnytoo, and I am using the hashtag #dailytreasure on each of my daily photographs.