The year of abundance

Because it's actually not a bad word

Sometimes I find it funny how much the quotidian aspects of life can affect us. They often fade into the background, not really registering in our consciousness in the moment, but when we stop and pay attention, they come blazing back into focus, and can add more meaning that you originally thought.

Last month we got a new duvet cover. I’m quite minimalistic when it comes to interior decorating, and we generally just use our bed linens until they wear out. It had been quite a few years since we bought a new one, and to the IKEA website I went as they have the best duvet covers. The one I fell in love with was “a rich floral pattern in earthy tones inspired by expressions of the British Arts and Crafts movement”. Aaron isn’t usually a fan of florals, but he said I could get whatever I wanted, so that’s what I chose.

After it arrived, Aaron actually really liked it (he said it gave “Emma M. Lion vibes”…which was very much the right thing to say! IYKYK). I loved the air it gave our room; to me the print seemed rich and sumptuous, and the fact that it was a higher thread count than our previous duvet cover made it feel that way as well.

One night we were talking about how my word for 2024 had been “dependence”, and how apt that turned out to be. And as we got into bed, Aaron remarked again about how much he liked the duvet cover and how the prints often end up defining different seasons in our lives. I glanced at the duvet cover, noting again how luxurious it looked and then it popped into my head…

ABUNDANCE.

I felt strongly that my word for 2025 was supposed to be “abundance”, but I pushed back hard. I’ve seen much abuse in the name-it-and-claim-it circles, and I’m so weary of the popular version of American Christianity that focuses so much on the (false) narrative that following Jesus means that you’ll always be happy and have everything you want. To me, it seemed presumptuous to say that was my word for the coming year. I dismissed the idea, and tried to move on, but it kept niggling the back of my brain.

A couple of days later, I mentioned it to Aaron, and not shockingly, he talked his fire-and-ice Irish girl off her ledge of intellectual indignation. Though the idea has certainly been abused in many ways, Jesus plainly tells us in John 10:10 that “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” And while abundance can be material, it can also be so many other things as well. I realized Aaron was right, and decided that, yes, my word for 2025 would be “abundance”.

Several days after that conversation, it was Christmas. My parents had been here for the previous week, arriving the day before our kids' Christmas dance performance, and then our oldest’s birthday. It was the first time my parents had ever spent Christmas with our family as our last one together was when I was engaged.

Their presence for Christmas was a special gift, and combined with many other things, it turned out to be the best Christmas ever. So much joy, and so many sweet moments. Top amongst them was watching Fjord experience what was essentially his first real Christmas, as the previous year he slept literally the entire day with a fever, and the few years before that, he was too young to really realize what was going on. The moments of joy littered the day… Reading a new and utterly beautiful Christmas book with the kids (my new favorite!). Spending a half hour building Fjord’s new dinosaur racetrack with him, delightedly watching his four-year-old mind work. Sipping tea and eating gluten-free scones while talking with my parents in our cozy family room. Reading their new books aloud to my three youngest. Cooking Christmas supper with my parent’s help, and then all of us eating it by the candlelight of our Advent wreath. I could go on and on…

That evening, while nursing Siobhan to sleep and reading some lovely Christmas poetry, I had the thought “This is abundance.” These ordinary moments, shot through with golden joy because of the love there. It sounds so simple and trite, but it’s actually resonating with truth.

I recently listened to a wonderful podcast with one of my favorite authors, Sarah Clarkson, and she made the observation that she’s learning to view her interactions with her husband, her children, people who love her, as one of the ways that God shows His love to her. That made a lot of sense to me because God is love (1 John 4:16). And if God is love, then wouldn’t some of the truest outworkings of His love be in the abundant life He promised us? Yes, that might be in material possessions, but I think it’s more often found in the simple moments when you realize that this ordinary time with a person who means the world to you is a gift of incredible worth. God’s abundance on display in us.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” (James 1:17)