For the last two or three years I’ve adopted a ‘One Word’ for the year. The concept is to choose a word which will define your year, which will guide and direct all you do and be at the centre of everything that year.

For 2014 I chose ‘courage’. And this turned out to be very prophetic. I was confronted with the worst of myself and the best of myself.

The best? That I have a writing gift which God wants me to use to benefit others for good – and which actually makes a difference in the world. That I’m well-liked, respected person and writer with a lot to give to the world, and have infinite value and worth as I am.

The worst? My abysmal management of my finances which was going to land me in major trouble unless I took action. How disconnected I’d become from God, and from my own calling. And in what bad health I was in, physically, mentally, emotionally, professionally and spiritually. And above all, my epilepsy-related depression.

This is what happens when you choose a word for the year. In some strange, cosmic way, it comes to challenge you, and incapsulate everything you are in that year. And it’s not exaggeration to say it changes your life for the better.