One Word That Brought Me Back

One word.

That’s how it began. A small practice that helped carry me through some of the deepest, darkest seasons of my life.

Not a ten-step program. Not a vision board. Not even therapy alone, though therapy helped.

One word, pulled each morning before fear could take over the conversation.

This practice became part of the foundation of The Power Back Project. It changed the way I moved through my life and inspired so many friends that they started calling me in the morning to ask, “MJ! What’s our word of the day?”

But when I first discovered it, I had no idea how much it would come to mean.

I’ll never forget the morning I was cleaning under my bed and found a little box I hadn’t seen in years.

I was about twenty-six, living in a little condo I had purchased. A friend had given me that pretty little box in high school, filled with Angel Words. Back then, I thought they were cute, but they hadn’t meant much more than that.

Finding them made me smile. I set them beside my bed.

At the time, I was beginning to experience panic attacks. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of six years. I was in a new place, alone, unsure of what the future held, and feeling distant from God.

I was running on fumes, disconnected from myself, making decisions from fear instead of faith.

The next morning, I woke up with that familiar anxiety settling in. But for some reason, instead of reaching for my phone, I placed my hand on my heart and asked, “Who am I today?”

Then I reached over and pulled a word.

FAITH.

It hit somewhere deep.

I said it out loud. Let myself feel it. And something shifted. My body softened. I could breathe a little easier.

I picked up my pen and journaled about what faith meant for me, for that morning, for my decisions, and for my life.

(I’d be lying if I said everything got easier from there. In many ways, my challenging journey was just beginning.)

I pulled a word each morning.

The next day was SURRENDER. Then DEATH. On day four, REBIRTH.

As I journaled, those words began to tell a story. I started considering what I needed to release, what was ending, and what might be beginning.

They gave me something to return to when my thoughts got loud. My decisions began to reflect them. Little by little, I began to live them.

And then, as things got better, I pushed the ritual aside.

I was thriving again.

Until I wasn’t.

Years later, I thought I had met the love of my life. I got married. Had two beautiful children. And lived through the most confusing, isolating, mentally abusive season of my life.

Eventually, I made the decision to leave and start again.

There I was, about ten years later, in a little house I had rented.

Alone again.

And there was my little box of Angel Words.

Seeing it took my breath away.

For the first time in a long time, I felt something stronger than the loneliness: the realization that I wasn’t alone.

To me, finding that box again was God reminding me He was still there. Still with me. Even after everything.

I smiled through my tears and began my ritual again.

I still do it every morning.

I believe God is always with us. Sometimes His presence becomes clear through something so small we could easily overlook it.

You just have to look for the signs.

What moves me now is that the box had been there long before I understood how much I would need it. A gift from my teenage years became something I reached for as a woman trying to find her way.

Twice.

The words didn’t make the hard decisions for me. Faith didn’t mean I stopped feeling afraid. Surrender didn’t mean accepting a life that was hurting me. Rebirth didn’t mean starting over was easy.

But each word gave me a question I could carry into the day.

What would faith look like in this decision?

What am I holding so tightly that I can’t receive anything new?

What needs to end so I can begin again?

That is where the practice became powerful: in the way I lived after I closed my journal.

Sometimes it meant resting. Sometimes it meant speaking up. Sometimes it meant doing the very thing I was afraid to do.

If you want to try it, begin with one word. Pull it from a little box or choose one that speaks to what you need today.

Say it out loud. Write about it. Ask yourself what it would look like to live it in one small, honest way.

You don’t have to force a revelation. Some mornings, it may simply give you enough space to hear yourself again.

Every morning is a new word. I ask my angels to guide me, then pull a word and spend a little time with it. I lean on it. Journal on it. Ask what it means for the life I’m living right now, and do my best to live by it.

Because life keeps evolving. New seasons begin. New challenges arise. There are still days when I feel afraid or don’t know what comes next. But I know God is there, guiding me even when I can’t see where we’re going.

I’ve come to see the hard times as lessons preparing me for my higher purpose. That doesn’t mean everything that happened was okay. It means I can take what I’ve learned and let it strengthen me, deepen my compassion, and help me do something meaningful with the life ahead of me.

My first word was faith.

And through all the words, all the years, and all the versions of myself I’ve had to become, faith is what I keep coming back to.

Faith that I am being guided. That there is still good ahead. That even after the longest, darkest night, the sun will rise again.

I don’t know what word I’ll pull tomorrow. But I know I won’t face the day alone.

With my faith, I can handle whatever comes. And you can too.