One Little Word 2019: Refine

As I thought over my One Little Word for 2019, I kept thinking of my word for last year which was FOCUS. I’m tempted to just rephrase that with having my word be REFOCUS as I don’t think I fully focused in on the year as much as I wanted. I still feel rather scattered and split… am I a wedding calligrapher or painter of personalized wall decor? And why can’t I be both?

So while I wrestled with this… I saw the word “refine” and being drawn to it, I had to look up its exact meaning:

remove impurities or unwanted elements

to make improvement by introducing subtleties or distinctions

And when I read that, it resonated me with on a few levels. One of which is my spiritual life which has had a great awakening these past few months as my family and I got back into going to church and LOVING it. My soul was so thirsty for the Word for so long, for years even, so I love how refined can be defined by the action of making something pure or improved by pruning.

But then on the business level, all this past year I struggled with letting go of avenues of design that just didn’t fit me anymore. Or that have run their course. For example, one of my first big product booms of my shop were my embossed cards. Each one was handwritten with a special kind of ink and then dusted with powder and then heat embossed. I went from selling hundreds a month to less than a hundred a year. To sell one at a time, was just a pain to pull out all the supplies so I made the decision to just remove them completely from my shop. And it felt GREAT. It is time to move on.

In an aim to not make this post too lengthy, my point is this: I plan to work similarly to last year, focused in, but continue to make refinements along the way. Some changes will be subtle while others may be larger in nature.

I have always given the reins of my work to God and just tended to the work I have been given with the talents God has blessed me with. So I am excited to see where He takes me this year.

Do you choose a word for each year?! I would love to know, tell me all about it in the comments!