reclaim Archives - Leah Stirewalt

If you read my post from yesterday, you know my word for 2020 is RECLAIM. If you haven’t read it yet, you can do so here. What does this look like for me? In essence, I am intentionally seeking to reclaim all the enemy has stolen from me over the last couple of years. And…there has been much.

As I reflect over the losses, I’ve had to admit some of them actually began just under a decade ago when losing my husband, Chris, to suicide. While I healed quite well following that intensely suffocating season of life, there are parts of me that I just lost. One of those was my passion for reading.

As a little girl, I devoured books from the moment I was able to read the words. I participated in every reading challenge and opportunity presented to me at school. Furthermore, my grandad would take me out one Saturday a month for a special time with him, and that time always included a trip to the bookstore to pick out my favorite Nancy Drew or Judy Blume book. I. Read. All. The. Time. Books not only brought pleasure, but they presented an opportunity for me to briefly escape from the horrors of a very dysfunctional childhood into another fantasy world…one without the drama I lived in daily.

Fast forward to 2011…the year Chris died. Outside of God’s Word, I read very little following his death, and it was only books on grief, Heaven, suicide, surviving loss, etc. Even then, my reading time measured nowhere close to what it had been in all the years past. This pattern of reduced reading only continued until I could actually count on one hand the numbers of books I read in a year. I realize for some of you who don’t like to read, it would be quite an accomplishment to read even one book in a single year, but for me, losing my passion for reading meant losing a piece of myself.

Last year, as I struggled to come out of my grief abyss in the second year following Joel’s death, I decided I was going to read again. Being the competitive person that I am, I challenged myself through the GoodReads app to read 40 books in 2019. You can imagine my surprise when I got to the end of the year to discover I had actually read 70 books! Yes…7-0 books! What in the world? All I could think was, “I’m back!” Or…at least that part of me and my personality was back. I found such a love for reading all over again. I love reading across all genres (with the exception of horror – no thank you), but my favorites are memoirs and historical fiction. With memoirs, I love reading the stories of people who have overcome significant obstacles or horrific past experiences – maybe because I can relate. (Speaking of those types of memoirs…I highly recommend Etched in Sand by Regina Calcaterra. You can read more about it here. It’s amazing!)

With such a surprisingly successful reading year in 2019, I’m doing it again in 2020 (or at least attempting to). I’ve challenged myself to read 80 books this year. It seems a bit daunting, however I really want to try to surpass what I did in 2019. Let the challenge begin!

Reading is only one minor area I’ve reclaimed (so far), but it brings me such joy to see the real me shining through the darkness again.

I’ve always been intrigued by people who select a “word of the year”. I love reading their posts about how they come to that particular word selection, but I’ve never felt inclined to hop on that bandwagon. I guess it’s a little of the rebel in me…not wanting to “be like everybody else”…not wanting to ride the wave of the next trend. However, I’ve recently discovered there is value in choosing a word for the year. Stick with me for a few minutes, as I unveil what led to my choice for 2020.

In my last post, I shared about how I’ve just recently come out of a period in my life I’ve dubbed “The Pause”. To say it was a difficult season is an understatement. I came face-to-face with grief in an unhealthy way. I developed many strongholds that kept me deep in bondage. I literally experienced a couple years of life in which I no longer knew the woman in the mirror. I allowed the enemy to rob me of precious time, peace, prosperity, wisdom, and ultimately…joy. I hated who I had become.

But God… When He delivers, He delivers big time! He waited patiently for me to crawl back to Him, in search of complete healing. When I finally did so, He picked me up, dusted me off, washed and cleansed me through the redemptive blood of Jesus and set me back on firm ground. And, as I’ve been walking out this “deliverance”…this healing…this time of restoration, I’ve sensed in my spirit His nudging to go back and reclaim my life. RECLAIM…my word for 2020.

One definition of reclaim is to “retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given, or paid)”. That is ultimately what I feel led to do. In the book of Joel (chapter 2, verse 25), God makes a firm promise.

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust have eaten, ”

I so love this promise, and I’m claiming it for myself as I step out to begin the journey of reclaiming the last few years that the “swarming locust” in my life have devoured. The fighter in me has risen back up from the ashes of defeat. I’m armed and ready for battle, and with God going before me and being my rear guard, the warrior in me is marching out to reclaim all that has been stolen from me by the enemy. Some of it I freely gave to him, but I feel even that is being restored as God guides me in this battle to take it back.

I don’t know how this will all play out this year, but I’m choosing to allow RECLAIM to guide me daily. It will serve as a filter, of sorts, through which I can use to guide me in decision making. For example, I can pose the question before saying “yes” to the next ask that comes my way, “Will this aid in my journey to reclaim the lost years, or will this simply be a distraction to all God has planned for me?” There are so many good things…so many good opportunities, but I only want God’s best for me. I only want His plans for me. I want to be walking directly in the center of His will for my life. The plans I made for myself only brought heartache. Gone are those days. God is doing a new thing!

I am reclaiming all He had prepared for me that I squandered away. How about you? Do you have a “word for the year”? Do you have a new goal you feel led to focus on this year?

Bring on the Books!

My Word for 2020