Perfectly Imperfect

Happy New Year! I hope you've been able to settle back into a schedule. It's hard to believe an entire week of 2026 is already behind us.

Photo by S. Williams

Like many people, especially those who enjoy playing with words, I like to pick a meaningful word to focus on for the year. But I'm struggling with choosing it.

I read beautifully curated posts about how a specific word applies to someone's life, mission, and goals. How it just fits their current situation or season. At this moment I feel like I need a lot of words! The jumbled, messy, chaotic kind. The words that are almost right, nearly correct, but not quite.

My efforts feel halfhearted. I'm unable to focus. My thoughts and writing have been scattered. Definitely not polished and perfect. Kind of like life. The year 2025 ended in fits and starts, and 2026 picked up the theme. Colds and congestion kept us from all gathering as a family for Christmas. We attended the memorial service of a wonderful man in my childhood community. Schedules were turned on end with a dear one's fall and subsequent surgery. Appointments that took hours of planning were suddenly changed necessitating rearranging days yet again. Business, travel, work, and birthdays marched on. Yet small celebrations and joy-filled moments permeate the days. Heartfelt connections and encouragement abound, even when worry lurks in the shadows.

Photo by S. Williams

So how did all of this influence my choice of a word for the year? It came to me as I worked on a puzzle. I've been amazed at how my thought processes smooth out and how much I can relax while searching for the exact piece. A puzzle isn't complete until everything is perfect; each piece having only one place it can fit. But our lives aren't made up of perfect pieces. Some things need some smoothing or sanding before they fit. Some people or ideas never fit. Many times, our own efforts are imperfect. We're not promised an easy or even a fair life. It's nearly guaranteed that it won't happen. What we are promised is that, if we are faithful, much can be done with our imperfect efforts, our imperfect relationships, our imperfect words. They can still have a profound impact on others. Our imperfections, with His grace, can be made perfect. So, this year, I'm claiming imperfect as my word of the year, to remind me to always combine my efforts with His grace.

Do you choose a word for the year? What influences your choice?