2025 - more J.E.S.U.S.
My word for the year is Jesus. Technically it is an acronym: J.E.S.U.S.
I set this intention in December of 2024 and it carried me through the start of this year. This intention J.E.S.U.S. has transformed, evolved, and crystallized as I have during 2025 so far.
As I journey through life, especially this year, crossing the threshold from my 20s to my 30s in 3 months, I want to live a life with Jesus that is fulfilling, peaceful, and purposeful. I know with Him that I will. When I sat down to reflect on 2024 and decide what I want 2025 to feel like and look like, I knew Jesus had to be at the center. After trusting God more fully amidst a move to a new state and changing relationships mostly based on that move, I was reminded that my relationship with Jesus is equally as important as my relationship with God. Thus was born my word of the year: J.E.S.U.S.
Let’s get on the same page here. What does J.E.S.U.S. stand for? Apart from the emphasis and focus on Jesus Christ, each letter carries its own meaning:
J = Joy. E = Expansion. S = Surrender. U = Uncover. S = Strengthen.
What does living with Jesus, more J.E.S.U.S. mean for me this year?
Actively choosing more joy. Allowing expansion in my life, my mindset, and my perspective. Surrendering to God’s plan more deeply and more fully than ever. Trusting His path, His purpose, and His timing far more than my own. Uncovering expired timelines or thought patterns, and reconnecting back to my true self/my highest self. Strengthening my mind, my connections, my self-trust, my intuition, my prayer life, my body, my support system.
What has that been looking like over the first 4 months of 2025?
Joy - Choosing more joy in my daily life. Joy is a choice and goes hand-in-hand with gratitude. When I am grateful for who I am, the people in my life, what I get to do, the conversations I get to have, the impact I have on others, the beauty around me, spending time in nature, etc., I find the joy in the small moments. I am actively choosing more joy and expressing that joy out in the world. One tangible example of this is one of my goals to watch more sunrises and sunsets this year, alone or with friends. Sharing that goal and intention with others has invited deeper friendships and connections because I get to physically or digitally share that with more people. Choosing to share the joy of a sunrise or sunset with loved ones strengthens a precious bond that I deeply cherish.
Expansion - Allowing expansion of life, mind, and perspective has looked and felt very different. Some examples and focus areas for me with expansion this year have been in therapy and my relationships (with friends and family). I am expanding my vocabulary, how I communicate with others, and how I relate to others. I am working on releasing old thought patterns and creating space for more expansion. These practices have been both confronting and beautiful.
Surrender - Surrendering and trusting in God’s plan and His timing will be a lifelong endeavor. My humanity tempts me to want to choose my own path and follow my plan, but I know in my heart and soul that He has more in store for me than all I could ask, think, or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). As much as my heart knows it, my head isn’t always in agreement. The intuitive parts of me trust and believe, and yet the cognitive parts have resistance to surrender. There have been many moments and invitations during the start of 2025 where I got to practice surrender - sometimes well and other times not so much. And so it is. Continuing to share with others, to journal, to pray about it, to reflect on what is causing that resistance, are all ways that continue to support me in surrendering more often and more fully so that I can flow through life with more abundance and ease.
Uncover - This process of uncovering has been an interesting one. In practice, much of this work has been through prayer, my yoga asana practice, meditation, and breathwork. Tuning in and tapping into my deepest essence of self reveals and exposes the true me. Therapy has been supportive to help me to uncover expired timelines or thought patterns that were never mine, reconnecting back to myself. I have a therapist that shares similar beliefs to me and acts as a mirror pointing me back to Scripture and who God says that I am, which I am grateful for and is something I actively sought out in selecting my therapist.
Strengthen - Strength comes in so many different forms. That’s been the fun part of this last one. I am getting stronger in a number of areas including physical strength, mental strength, mental and emotional resilience, spiritual strength, and relational strength. For example, physically, I skied more this season than I have in my lifetime. I prioritized strength and endurance to support the amount of skiing that I knew I would do. As I transition from skiing season to hiking/running, I’ve dialed in my nutrition and continued to emphasize strength alongside mobility and flexibility. I am training for my first half marathon and am excited to see what my body can do leading up to that race and on race day. A Bible verse that I often think about related to physical and spiritual strength is in Hebrews 12:1-3 about running our race well, fixing our eyes on Jesus, and reflecting on Him who endured opposition. This puts everything into perspective for me.
Thanks for being here. Thank you for listening. And thank you for letting me share part of myself with you.
Stay curious + thank you, Jesus!
xo,
Megan C
