Inquisitive Adventures

A New Year’s Reflection

Happy New Year! This New Year’s was spent relaxing and keeping one of our dogs calm while our neighbors set off fireworks. Nothing special, just slow and quiet. My husband watched the Buckeyes game while I alternated between reading, playing a video game, and getting caught up on a favorite show as snow fell outside. While staying up until midnight is not my favorite part of this holiday. I love the idea of a fresh beginning.

I am an existentialist and dreamer at heart, and I take the month of January to reflect on the past year and reset with intention for the one ahead.  Each year, I pray for direction and choose a word for the year, along with Scripture passages that I feel God wants to use to teach me. Proverbs 16:9 reminds us, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

My word for this year is preparation.

The past year has held many challenges and has been a season of transition–preparing me for what comes next. Standing between what was and what will be is not always easy. There are moments of weariness and moments of hope as each step unfolds. If I have learned anything, it is that we need not remain stuck in fear of making the wrong decision. While we should seek guidance and discernment in our plans and goals, life is often shaped through learning. When we invite God into our plans, He can guide and teach us, even when things don’t go as we’d hoped or we take an unexpected turn.

Preparation means seeking God in the waiting, tending what is before me, and trusting Him with what lies ahead.

Some things are present but obscured; others are quietly growing beneath the fog. Preparation looks like trusting both. These images of fog settling among the trees have felt like a visual prayer for this season — a reminder that preparation often happens quietly, before the path fully clears.

Over the past three years, I have returned to Psalm 23 as one of my passages for the year, and once again, it is fitting for this season of preparation. The more I study it, the more I learn from it. My word for 2025 was restore, and Psalm 23 beautifully describes how God walks with us and restores our souls through rest and time spent with Him. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:1–3)

God often calls us to rest and restores us in preparation for action. There is much in life we cannot control, but we are not meant to remain stagnant. Rest and stagnation are not the same. Rest is an essential part of action—it is trusting God with what we cannot control and remembering that we are not God. And no matter what life brings, we can rest in the assurance that even in the darkest valley, He is there with us.

As I enter this year of preparation, I am learning that faith is often less about having clarity and more about keeping pace. Galatians reminds us, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). Preparation is not rushing ahead, nor is it standing still—it is walking attentively with God, trusting Him to establish each step as it comes. In seasons of waiting, rest becomes an act of obedience, and hope grows quietly beneath the surface. The Shepherd leads, the Spirit guides, and we are invited simply to keep walking. 

As we close for today, I thought it would be fitting to end with a prayer and a moment of reflection.

What is your word for the year?
Where is God inviting you to rest so that He can restore you for what comes next?

Lord, help me plan with humility, rest without guilt, and walk faithfully in step with Your Spirit. Teach me to trust You in the waiting and prepare my heart for what lies ahead. Amen.