Now I know what you are probably thinking, why the heck is she using the word ‘forge’ in the title of this post? What a random and uncommon word, and I would have to agree. However, I promise I didn’t just pull up dictionary.com and pick the first word I saw and write a whole post on it. There is always a method to my madness, and this is the story behind it.

Remember how last year I prayed over the year to come and let the words ‘persistent and preserve’ guide my 2021? Well if you don’t, you may want to go back a few posts and find out. But I did this exercise again at the end of the year and encouraged you do to the same. Mid-December I began to really spend time thinking about how I wanted to grow, learn, and evolve over the next twelve months.

During the last three weeks of December I discovered my new words for 2022.

Intentional

While I was on the plane flying back home from the United Kingdom, it really hit me that life was changing. In the sense that in 8 hours, I would touch down in the country I will most likely call home for the rest of my life, begin a new chapter of my life in which I honestly had only one certainty in the fact that I was going to start my career, and the rest was up to the daily decisions I would be making every day. So, yeah it was a little scary, overwhelming, and intimidating to have a huge amount of time flying through the air just with your thoughts. 

As I impatiently watched the flight time decrease, I decided that I wanted to be as intentional with every decision I made in the new year as possible. I did this for a few reasons. One was that I had no ‘have-to’s’ or things tying me to a certain place, person, or experience. I had the world at my fingertips, and I could make literally any decision I wanted to. So, with great power comes great responsibility. As I began this new chapter, I decided I wanted to be strategic about everything I said yes and no to. Secondly, these are going to be some of the most formational years of my life that I am walking into. My early to mid-twenties; when I hopefully fall in love, find what I love to do, discover who will be in my life for eternity, and what I want the rest of my life to look like. So, all that to say, I discovered within myself a desire for deep intentionality. When entering this new year, I decided to be intentional as possible with who I spent time with, what I watched, listened to, said, gave my time to, and so on. From the moment I stepped off the plane, I began practicing how to live more intentionally.

Forge

One night as I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, I was praying and kept feeling the word ‘forge’ come into my thoughts as I was praying. I was just as confused as you probably were reading this title. I hadn’t used the word forge recently, if ever in casual conversation, so you can imagine how puzzled I was when I couldn’t get this word out of my head for days. I tossed around the idea of this as my word for the year for a few days, and one day it really stuck.

I remember this because I told my coworkers and they looked at me really funny, rightfully so. I said, “Not forge like in a forest, but forge as in forging an intentional path for my life this year.” As I had never explained this idea to anyone before that day, it was like my soul had already created a definition for me as though I knew I was going to have to explain it. After that, I knew forge was stuck, even though it is uncommon and a little awkward for our society’s vocabulary. But I love it because it is such a weird word that it is a constant reminder of what I value most every day.

I want to focus on creating a life that I love. One that is full of positivity, laughter, joy, comfortability in the uncomfortable, guiding others towards the warmth each day can bring and finding myself in all those small moments.

So, to the girl who is forging her path, frankly I am not sure how 2022 is going to pan out. But if I am being honest, I’m not scared. I know I have a God who loves me and is holding my hand through every single moment. Friends and family who want only the very best of me, and a new outlook on the everyday moments of life. Maybe this year won’t go exactly as planned, but when has anything planned every been the best stories to tell. So, here is to forging your own intentional path this year, however that may look for you.