I started praying and thinking about my word for 2016 a few months ago. Just shortly after my birthday, something about birthdays makes you very reflective huh?! It was around that time that God placed the word gather on my heart.

I've always been a gatherer in some way or another. I love to gather people in my home. I love girls night's, I'm the first to book a coffee date or have a party, or gather people for dinner in my home. I always tell people that I'm a social introvert, and by that I mean I love being around people and spending time with them. Even though they don't give me energy, it's part of my love language to spend quality time with people. Thus 'social introvert.'

As I started to pray about this word that God put on my heart, I felt the Lord revealing some things about this word and also convicting me in some areas of this word. If you've spent any time of this blog you've heard me use the phrase before 'create the community you crave.' It's a theme I feel strongly about. I've learned over the last years that the community I desire depends on me be willing to cultivate it and let the Lord do something with it.

It has not always been easy. There have been seasons where it's been especially difficult. There have been friendships that haven't stuck, there have been forgiveness in relationships, but there has also been great joy in connecting with people who see the value in it just as I do. I spent a lot of last year gathering people for various reasons because I see the value in it.

Two things stuck out to me when I started praying about this word for 2016;

1. I need to focus on quality over quantity.

I do not need a bunch of friends. Not even close. God is showing me that he's placed certain people along my path right now. But he's also placed life long friends in my life for a reason and I need to focus on making those matter as well. Gathering is less about the amount but the quality. When a farmer gathers his crop at the end of the season he's hoping for a quality crop, it won't matter if it's a 100 bushels of crop if it's all spoiled. I believe that the Lord is calling me to focus this year on the quality, and not the quantity when it comes to relationships and people this year. When it comes to gathering people in my life for whatever reason I want that gathering to be purposeful.

2. I need to gather my family more.

I spent a lot of last year gather people for a lot of things but it wasn't always my family. At the end of last year I started to feel convicted about this and felt the nudge to start having family dinners with my immediate family every Sunday evening. I'm so glad that I followed through on that nudging. Sunday family dinners with my Grandparents, mother, husband and children are some of my favorite memories from last year! This year I want to continue that. I want to gather my family for more family nights, more family time of togetherness. I want to do more acetates with my family, it's not about money spent but memories made and spending quality time with them. I don't want to look back on the end of this year and feel like we didn't spend enough time putting each other as the priority, or that I put gathering others before them.

When I think about 'gathering' this year this is what I want to focus on, this is where I want to rest and let the Lord lead and teach me in these areas as I make them a priority in this way.

Are you focusing on a word for the year? If so, I'd love to hear what God's placed on your heart. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Andrea Worley