Welcome, one and all, to 2026.
As we change
our calendars today, many of us quietly hope that something within us will
shift as well.
If there is one thing I wish to change, it is how we approach one another.
Everyone is navigating unseen complications, trying to make sense of the world
around them whilst carrying burdens we may never fully understand.
It is moments like today that kindness is not optional but it is necessary.
This time of
year invites reflection.
We look back at what has been and consider what remains unresolved.
I was
reminded recently of a verse that spoke about forgetting the past, not as an
act of erasure, but as an invitation to release what no longer serves the soul,
so that healing can begin.
We are who we
are, formed by experience, memory, and grace.
Yet we are also called to be a forward-looking people, and faith teaches us that
hope is not passive. It is lived.
Our strength, intelligence, wisdom, and courage are gifts entrusted to us, not
for hoarding, but for service. (I read that somewhere on Akin’s blog).
When we respect creation and honour the rhythms of life, we allow what is
sacred to flow through us and beyond us.
We cannot spend
our days blaming those who came before us for the brokenness we see today.
Responsibility belongs to us who are here now, breathing, believing, and still
given time.
As I have grown older, I have learned that circumstances begin to speak
differently. What once felt distant becomes deeply personal, and what once felt
theoretical becomes a call to action.
This time is
ours and ours to steward wisely.
Ours to heal what has been wounded and to restore what has been neglected.
Though change may feel larger than us, faith reminds us that transformation
often begins in quiet obedience, in small acts done with love.
As we step into
2026, may we walk with humility and purpose. May we listen more than we speak,
forgive more than we judge, and love more than we fear. May we trust that even
in uncertainty, we are not abandoned. We are guided. And may this year find us
not only hoping for a better world, but becoming the vessels through which that
better world is made.
