Our blogging friend, Layla from The Lettered Cottage, is hosting a link party on January 16^th, she’s calling:

Hmmmm…
No, Hmmmm isn’t my ‘word of the year’, (at least not this year) but it does give me pause to think. To be able to put my goals into one word for this year is a challenge indeed.

I think my ‘word of the year’ is going to have to be RESPONSE.

And if it was a ‘sentence of the year’ it would be: WHAT IS MY RESPONSE?

What is my response? is the question I am convicted to ask myself in just about every situation. What is my response to situations, to people, and to eternity. I believe it is what I will answer to God for when I meet Him face to face. If you think about it, to be conscious of the responsibility of our response in every circumstance, puts the burden of our choices squarely on our own shoulders.

In the Bible when Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me.” He’s telling us, it’s our response He wants from us. For us to be in union with Him, we must respond to His calling.

My Grandmother was an amazing woman that was 100% Dutch. She was a powerful impact in my life. She was one of the people in my life that showed me that I could not ‘shrug’ off the accountability of my choices. And Grandma could grow tulips, (and anything else for that matter) like no one’s business.

Grandma would bury the lifeless looking brown bulbs in the garden in the fall. Then winter would settle on the garden, freezing the soil solid, covering it with blankets of snow. But each year, as Spring initiated subtle warmth on the earth,

the layers of snow melted and the bulbs responded to the warming rays of the sun by sprouting, ever so hopeful to peek up and say hello. So I too, want my response to be yet so promising, even after life’s seasons of cold hard winters.

And just as the emergent plants respond to the energy poured upon them from the sun, by flowering their beautiful blooms, echoing that energy, so I want my responses to resonate God’s love that’s poured upon me.

So what’s my response? It’s my choice.

This post is linked up at The Lettered Cottage.