Two weeks and one snow storm into the new year, I figured it was time to write about my word for 2025. This one actually came to me relatively quickly when I began thinking about it last year. Starting a new job & having one child start pre-k in “big girl school” and one child start a pre-school program at church, on top of all the other life stuff, left me feeling overwhelmed more than I care to admit last year. So when I began praying about my word, that is what kept coming to mind, “overwhelm.” But I knew that wasn’t right. To continue to be overwhelmed wasn’t what God wanted for me.

And then I found Psalm 61. I don’t often read from the NLT, but this grabbed me:

“O God, listen to my cry!
Hear my prayer!
From the ends of the earth,
I cry to you for help
when my heart is overwhelmed.
Lead me to the towering rock of safety,
for you are my safe refuge,
fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.
Let me live forever in your sanctuary,
safe beneath the shelter of your wings!” (vs. 1-4)

And then, because last year I was memorizing some Psalms, and my husband and I were reading Tim Keller’s devotional though the Psalms, the word refuge just kept coming up. It’s used over 40 times in the Psalms! And it clicked into place as my word for this year.

A refuge is a shelter from danger or storm. And isn’t that what overwhelm feels like, a storm? I felt God drawing me in, reminding me that when I begin to feel overwhelmed, the solution isn’t to rely on my own strength. I have the tendency to just put my head down and muscle through.

But instead, I should look up, and allow myself to be led to God, my safe refuge, my towering rock of safety. There, under the shelter of his wings, I can cry out to him and be filled with the strength that comes from being in his presence. And that is the kind of strength that will get me through.

So, in 2025 I’m keeping God as my refuge at the forefront. I’m depending more on him, and less on me. And I’ll be coming out of this year overwhelmed by the greatness of God, and not the circumstances of my life.