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Opening the robin egg blue cover of the journal I’d purchased at Target only hours before, I pressed my pen to the blank page and began to write. For the sake of simplicity and trying to stay on a budget, I hadn’t planned to purchase a journal for the new year, since I still had ample space left in the simple notebook I’d used last year and hadn’t filled up. But there is something about a new year, a new season that makes me want a fresh space to write and reflect and remember.
This practice of journaling my way into a new year is one I’ve kept for over a decade now. It’s taken many shapes and forms–from lengthy pages remembering the year I was leaving, to a simple list of bullet points that defined or marked my last twelve months.
There have been years, like this one, when I feel a little bit of pressure to figure it all out before I even reach January. Goals need set, words of the year need chosen, schedules and master to-do lists need written down in brand new planners.
Each new year gives us the opportunity to start fresh, start over, and reset. I appreciate the rhythms of the new year. However, there isn’t anything magical about January. It is simply the next month in our ongoing, ordinary lives. It can be a diving board for a fresh start, or a continuation of the life we are already living.
Whatever this new year is dredging up in you–excitement or apprehension, hope or hesitation–here are four things to consider to help you graciously and slowly enter this new year:
Name the year you’re leaving behind
It is a valuable and impactful practice that, as seasons change, we take time to reflect on where we’ve been.
In recent years, as I’ve been embracing more simplicity in my daily and faith practices, I’ve come to really value a list of bullet points when it comes to reflecting on my year or season. It’s something I picked up from Emily P. Freeman’s Next Right Thing Guided Journal. Rather than long-form journaling or reflecting, you make a list.
It begins with a simple statement: This was the year of…
And then you list whatever comes to mind. This is a simple way to put some names to the year you’re leaving behind, to list the events, experiences, lessons, or people that marked this year.
For me, 2024 was the year of…
- LIGHT–unhindered, unburdened, illuminated
- Travel–I took 7 trips this year!
- Simple devotional practices like lighting a candle, reading children’s Bibles, and talking with God a lot about prayer
- Getting back into exercise
- Growing deeper in community
- Finding the rhythms of ordinary life after a hard season
Naming the year your leaving doesn’t have to be a long and complicated process. You could journal out pages if that’s helpful in remembering or reflecting. You could make a bulleted list. Or you could simply name the year as a whole with a word or two.
The simple practice of reflecting and naming helps us honor the season we’re stepping out of, even if it was a bad one. It gives us space to grieve, to acknowledge, and be honest–gifts that will help us graciously enter a new year because we’ve acknowledged where we’ve been.
Name the year you’re entering into
In a similar way that reflecting on the year we’re leaving and giving it a name helps us honor the season we’re leaving, naming the year ahead can be a gracious entry into the year ahead. We can often be very eager to jump into a new year with our resolutions to be or do better and the goals we’d like to pursue.
There’s nothing wrong with having intentions for the year. But before we make a list of plans for the year, it can be really helpful to examine our season of life and name the year we’re walking into.
Naming your year might mean choosing a word for the year, or asking God what words He would like to focus on this year. It might mean picking a verse or short Scripture passage to sit with.
Maybe naming your year means naming some hopes, being honest with yourself, God, and your community about what you want in the days and months ahead.
Maybe it means carrying the same themes or words from your reflection on last year into this year, because though the calendar year has changed, you’re still moving through the same life or spiritual season.
Perhaps naming the year ahead isn’t even a specific name or word. Maybe it just means taking the space to hold the year ahead with curiosity and hope.
Naming doesn’t have to be complicated or even concise. The truth is, we may not know how to name our year. But this isn’t about finding the perfect words. It’s about approaching the year before us with trust that the same God who walked with us through last year will continue to walk through this new one with us too.
Naming our year helps us keep from rushing head first with our intentions and trying to master the time we’ve yet to experience. It gives us space to begin the year with an open conversation with God about the days to come and commit ourselves once again to live devoted even in this new season.
Ask Yourself 5 Gracious Questions
Naming the year you’re leaving and the one you’re entering is a helpful big-picture practice. It provides a birds eye view. However, you may find that you desire some more specific guidance as you prepare to move into the new year graciously. For that, I have found these questions helpful:
1.Where did I see God this year?
What ways did you encounter God through Scripture, the disciplines, Christian community, and in your day-to-day life? What truths did He impart to you? In what ways did you experience His presence?
Where do I wish I had seen God?
2.What prayers or hopes are you still waiting on?
What moments left you disappointed or longing for more? What events made you question God’s presence, goodness, kindness, and faithfulness? How can you be honest with God about what you’re feeling about Him?
3.What am I taking with me into this new year?
What practices, routines, habits, or hobbies do you want to keep utilizing and pursuing? What brought you joy last year, and how might you prioritize that going forward?
4.What am I leaving behind?
Is there anything you don’t want to bring with you into the new year that needs to be surrendered, laid down, confessed, forgiven, given away, purged, or graciously left behind? What things served you well for a season that you don’t feel the need to continue with?
5.What do I need?
As you look ahead at the new year, what does your heart, soul, mind, or body need? Don’t overthink this one. Simply receive the answers that come as you ask this question.
Embrace Ordinary Life
The best way, I’ve been learning, to graciously enter a new year or season, is to simply embrace the beauty of ordinary life.
I’m grateful that a new year gives us the chance to reexamine priorities and desires, and make some plans to do things differently if we need or want to. But despite what our productivity culture tries to convince us, this span of 365 days is not meant for us to master.
January is simply a continuation of the life we are already living.
We don’t need to have our year or season planned out. As the old adage goes, beauty is in the journey, not the destination. And the truth is, despite our best intentions and plans, we don’t really know what is ahead. But we do know God is here, in this new year with us.
There is great value in embracing these days as they come.
So here’s to a new year of ordinary living, receiving the days as they come, and moving graciously through it.
