Dear Friends & Family,
I don’t know about you, but I always find these few days between Christmas and New Years to be rather disorienting. When I reflect back on 2025 my mind is filled with so many memories: the joys, blessings, challenges and lessons we experienced. But in thinking ahead toward the new year, the feelings are so very different. We have many plans and expectations, dreams we hope to realize, and faith that God will continue to move amongst us. Yet the future is, in fact, completely uncertain and unknown. 2026 exists only in our imagination.
As I rest in this moment between the past year and the one to come, I am struck by something remarkable. If the past is behind us – finished & unchangeable – and the future before us is uncertain & unknown – we really have NO control in this life, do we? We fool ourselves all the time to think that we do, but it is only in fleeting moments that we exercise any sort of control. But even then, within an instant that control can be lost: a child interrupts your thoughts, dinner is ready, the doorbell rings. The very moment after this one is not yet guaranteed.
Crazy to think about, no?
As I sat with God last night considering this reality, one beautiful truth became so clear… in the moments between the past and the future, where we have no control of what was or what will be – God is there. He IS in control. And we are in His hands. There is profound comfort in this truth. No matter what happened in 2025 or what will happen in 2026, our lives are in God’s hands. Trusting in this is where we find true peace.
Friends, please take a moment to reflect on these truths. In our world today we seek peace through control. But this reality is impossible. God alone is our source of true peace.
So our prayer for you this coming year is this: that you would find joy in the gifts of the past, peace as you rest in God’s hands, and hope in the future He has already planned.
Happy New Year everyone!
