2025 Word of the Year – Choose (and Chosen)

Are you looking for a post about how to choose a Word of the Year? If so, then you’ll want to read this post: How to Choose an Intentional Word of the Year.

This post is about my Word of the Year for 2025, which is CHOOSE. If you’re interested in why I chose choose (ha ha), keep reading! 😉

My 2025 Word of the Year Contenders

As I was on vacation in the Florida Keys the week before Christmas, I pulled out a notebook and started planning for 2025. I wrote out my goals for the year in all my major categories–Writing, Classes, WhiteFire, Personal, and Community. I have a page for my goals and desires for each of these, but I’d already reserved a page before them with some options for my 2025 Word of the Year. I always try to pick something that will apply to ALL parts of my life, something that will govern my year. As I sat on a porch overlooking the gorgeous turquoise waters one morning, this is what I wrote down:

• Restore
• Delight
• Dawn
• Welcome
• Dwell
• Ponder
• Meditate
• Faithful
• Stretch
• Rest
• Chosen/Choose

I had reasons for adding each of these to my list. After last year’s cancer battle, I crave to restore my health. I want to focus on the things that bring me delight, and on finding that delight even in challenging circumstances. I want to look for the dawn to follow this dark time, and I want to welcome both people and things that God puts in front of me this year. I want to dwell on all His blessings and ponder and meditate on His goodness. I want to be faithful to His calling on my life, and I want to stretch myself toward new heights and breadths and widths. After a hard year, I have so many goals on my list that I will also need to prioritize rest in order to avoid burnout or exhaustion.

I added all of those to my list in pretty quick succession, but no one word jumped out at me above the others. As I considered them, though, I realized that there was a concept that undergirded them all. A concept I had already been exploring in 2024. A concept that I wanted to fully embrace in 2025.

My Word of the Year Decision for 2025

The Lord has chosen me, just as He has chosen you. That is the most important thing. I choose to follow the Lord every day, and I get to choose many things in those days. Not what life will dish out–but so much more.

• I get to choose my reactions to each situation and circumstance.
• I get to choose my own priorities.
• I get to choose to find joy and delight.
• I get to choose who and what I will welcome into my daily routine.
• I get to choose on what I’ll ponder and dwell and meditate.
• I get to choose to remain faithful to God and His calling, to my friends and family, to my own dreams.
• I get to choose where and how I’ll stretch toward bigger dreams, more challenges, and distant goals.
• I get to choose when to rest and how to do it.

Fighting cancer last year was something I certainly didn’t ask for, didn’t choose, didn’t want. But over and over again, I realized that in those circumstances that were thrust upon me, there is still so much choice. I chose how to react. I chose to smile through it. I chose to chase after God and look for His hand in each day. I chose a good attitude. I chose to let Him use me. I chose joy. I chose to make my decisions on treatment and surgery based on what gives me the best chances of never going through cancer again (rather than what is easiest in the short-term). I chose to bear His light instead of letting the darkness overwhelm me.

I wrote several posts last year about these choices, and now, looking back on the year, those are the things that still resonate most with me–the things I want to deliberately carry through.

Because there are so many things in life we don’t choose–but even in them, we have so many choices.

We all know that our best-laid plans tend to go awry, and that only the Lord knows what our future path will truly look like. But even in that perpetual uncertainty, there are innumerable choices we make every day, things we often don’t think of as choices. Will you jump out of bed in the morning or roll over and sleep longer? Will you start your day with praise or complaints? Will you make healthy or unhealthy decisions in what you eat? Will you exercise today? Will you use your time wisely? Will you get lost in social media? Will you prioritize your big goals? Will you answer that email? Will you reach out to that friend you haven’t heard from lately? Will you obey that nudge about something that seems silly? Will you put your work aside at the set time or try to push through another task, even if it cuts into rest time? Will you say “yes” or “no” to those responsibilities? Will you prioritize this or that?

We all make so many decisions every day, but all too often, we forget that they are indeed things WE GET TO DECIDE. We forget that we are the ones who said yes to this commitment that is taking up so much of our time, or that we chose to prioritize this responsibility over that far-fetched dream.

In many of my past Word of the Year choices, I chose words that would help me make those decisions–words like Intentional, (Re)Discover, Linger, Devotion, and Promise. This year, I want to focus on the choices themselves, and on an awareness that I’m the one who decides. I can’t blame anyone or anything else when I don’t have time to write if, in fact, I’m just not using the time I have wisely. I can’t resent the responbilities when I’m the one who chose to say yes to them. And what’s more, I can CHOOSE my own attitude when life doesn’t go my way.

It matters, friends. It matters SO MUCH.

Every single doctor I’ve seen in the last year (and boy oh boy, there have been a lot!) commented on my good attitude and what a difference it makes. I give God all the credit for that–He held me so close I couldn’t honestly even consider feeling abandoned or dejected or afraid. But so many people choose the focus on the bad instead of the good. And I’ve certainly done that many times in life too. I want to make sure that in 2025, as I finish up my cancer treatments and most likely will have my final reconstruction surgery, I’m still choosing to make the best of things instead of falling into focusing on the bad. I want to make sure I’m choosing to use my time and energy wisely, that I’m focusing on the people and goals and dreams that will honor God and keep me on the path I want to be on.

Granted, I have more goals than I will likely have time and energy to accomplish, LOL. I will have to choose which ones to give priority. But being AWARE of that choice, realizing that I have to choose how to spend every minute, will help keep me on track.

There will always be things beyond our control–I know that better now than ever. But I also know that my choices still matter, even in those times.

I will choose joy. I will choose faith. I will choose relationships. I will choose love. I will choose dreams that honor God. I will choose helping others. I will choose the things that last.

Are you picking a Word of the Year for 2025?
I’d love to hear yours and why you chose it!