Crossing from one year into the next seems to bring with it the perception that the clock striking midnight will usher in something better, something borne on resolutions, vision boards, and the fierce desire to shape ourselves anew. We whisper “new year, new me”, as though speaking it aloud might coax a shinier, braver version of ourselves into being.
Yet here we stand at the dawn of a new year, looking back at the canvas of the year before, where the once vivid letters of HOPE have smudged and thinned, barely legible against the backdrop of twelve months that cracked our hearts open and ravaged more than we ever expected: our plans, our certainties, our spirits.
Perhaps hope is not the prominent word chalked on the blank slate of 2026. Perhaps it’s hard to hope, not because we lack faith, but because we know deep down that with the crumbling of the last thing we hoped for, something in us quietly crumbled with it. And in that breaking, we stopped reaching forward.
In a bid to shield ourselves from disappointment, perhaps we’re convincing ourselves it’s better to play it safe, not because our dreams have died, but because we’re still haunted by the cost of dreaming and losing. Perhaps we tell ourselves it’s better not to hope at all, than to hope and be broken by it once more. So instead, we temper our expectations. We talk ourselves out of what might be. We shrink our prayers until they match the small, trembling faith we’re able to muster. We settle for less wrapped in predictability, rather than hope wrapped in uncertainty, because another disappointment feels unbearable and lowering our expectations feels like control.
But here’s the truth: it’s not control, it’s self‑sabotage disguised as self‑protection. When realism leaves no room for hope, it’s not wisdom, it’s resignation. It’s a slow suffocation, for hope is breath itself, even when it comes in painful gasps.
We can’t allow the grief of disappointment to become our ceiling, nor bury our hunger for more beneath the lie that wanting is foolish. We’re allowed to want again. We’re allowed to believe that what’s ahead in this new year might yet surprise us. We haven’t missed His promise. We haven’t exhausted our miracles.
Let’s remember that we were created to live in harmony with the natural cycles of Creation, to move with the steady rhythm of the seasons. Our souls were shaped to breathe in time with a world that knows how to renew itself. The dawn of a new year is still the thick of winter. And just as winter comes for us all, so does the promise of spring. Nature is still loosening winter’s grip, spring is still taking shape, and hope is too.
Hope doesn’t have to be loud to be real. Fragile hope is still hope. It acknowledges reality and validates our weariness. Even here in the sorrow, in the uncertainty, in the shadowed corners of our hearts, hope flickers. So if all our fragile hope can do right now is whisper “I’m open”, that is enough. God meets us in our whispers, and He can grow something beautiful from even the smallest seed.
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