On the Eighth Day of Christmas

If you are tired of reading end-of-2024 posts, I can't blame you. Comparison is at its height this week, with all its ancillary temptations to envy or impulsivity as we observe our crosses and joys alike through the tinted, bubbly lenses of others’ lives.

But there is a gift and a joy to looking back over a calendar year — if we're bringing ourselves and our stories into the clear, strong light of God. No lens required.

I'm not immune to the desire to turn my life around whenever a tidy calendar landmark presents itself. I've bought a new calendar for the wall and a planner for my desk. I've even started early on a few resolutions. More than anything, though, I've been trying to be open to and aware of what the Lord might have in mind for my new year.

I wrote recently on Instagram about feeling a tug from the Lord toward the word fearless. That's been joined with a renewed urge to read the Bible in the morning before checking my phone, a stronger devotion to my patron saint, and a few other bits and pieces of inspiration coming together into what I am considering my spiritual moodboard for 2025. It's all in the service of hope. I'm clinging to the knowledge that God's plan for me is good, even and especially when it seems excruciatingly hard.

It's been A Year. In some ways I've found healing, strength, and growth. In other ways I feel just as exhausted, overwhelmed, and broken. For the first time in my life I hit a wall I couldn't break through and I had to step back big-time to reset. I strengthened old and new friendships. I released my debut novel. I read over 200 books, from deep spiritual classics to fluffy indie urban fantasy. I spent more time in bed than in my whole college career, I think. I worked the National Eucharistic Congress and visited Santa Fe for the first time. I learned how to take care of my body and mind.

I don't have wisdom to share, conclusions to draw, or comparisons to make. I hardly even have strong emotions about the turn of the year.

What I do have is sheer, stubborn, sometimes stupid determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other until the good Lord calls me home. To keep striving and failing and suffering and laughing and writing and sleeping and praying and thinking. I don't know what this next year holds — I don't really want any warning, truth be told, I'll deal with it when I get there.

But hey, I figured out how to make an em-dash with my phone’s keyboard so that is a win. And 25 is my favorite number (5 squared, and since 5 is my second-favorite number…welcome to my brain.)

So it's going to be okay. And if not, well, Christ will eventually come again, which means that one of these days, I'll never have to deal with taxes again. Or death. But mostly taxes.

Happy New Year, y'all. Thanks for being here.