Hope for the New Year…?

The approach of a new year can be a time for reflection. It can be unsettling or daunting. As we reflect on the year that is passing, we wonder whether it was a good one and whether we made the most of it. Doubtless, at our age, there will be elements that bring sadness or regret. Today, I heard the words I needed to hear on the brink of this new year.

For me, at the end of 2023, I feel as though I am coming through quite an arrid patch; I spent most of this half term on crutches and recovering from a double infection. 6 weeks on, my voice still hasn’t fully recovered from laryngitis. And it’s amazing how important our voice is, not just at work, but for our sense of self. Voiceless, most of my thoughts internalised, I have felt quieter, smaller, less myself. This, coming at the end of the longest term I can remember, has left me sapped and feeling that life has lost its sparkle. Don’t get me wrong, people around me have been wonderful, and there have been moments of real gladness, but the days have felt long… Do you know what I mean?

And then this morning, I woke up late and remembered it was Sunday and I’d forgotten to go to church. So, feeling a little bit fragile inside my maudlin New Year reflections, I sat in my prayer chair and opened my Lectio365 app.

Firstly, the poem that always comforts me on December 31st:

Then, the Psalms remind us that God is always faithful and always has been and always will be. And my favourite words from Isaiah:

I love the idea that God is doing a new thing, but 2 things stood out for me today:

1. The instruction first to forget the former things. How liberating that this is a chance to let go of anything from 2023 that could hold us back!

2. Where is it this new thing will begin? In the wilderness, in the desert. How poignant, when the way has felt so arrid and dry, that here I have a promise of faithful God growing something new.

Then Pete Greig gives us the Methodist Covenant. This means so much to me, perhaps because I grew up in a Methodist church, but also because it is deeply, spiritually significant on this day, especially.

So often in our modern lives, without even noticing, we find ourselves at the very centre of everything, and we worry about losing our significance. And yet, reading this 250-year-old covenant, I know a deep sense of liberation. It is not all about me. There is a higher, brighter way. And yet, this juxtaposition, that I am loved. I am known. I am secure. I put my hand into the hand of kindest One I know, and I pass safely into 2024.