Facing a New Year

December 29, 2024 — Laura House

The new year is nearly upon us, and for many people, New Year celebrations bring hope for fresh starts, new beginnings, and optimism about the months ahead. Vast numbers of people purchase gym memberships, pledging to get fit, and make resolutions and goals for the next year. New Year’s is portrayed as a time to forge new paths.

When I was growing up, my family traditionally had fondue for dinner on New Year’s Eve, wrote our resolutions on slips of paper to store in an envelope until the following year, and opened up the previous year’s envelopes to see if we had kept our resolutions. Although we enjoyed revisiting our thoughts from last year and discovering if we had fulfilled our pledges, what we really looked forward to was sitting together recounting all that had happened through the year, while one of us wrote it all down in our “family council” book. We recorded the good, the bad, hilarious and heart-warming things, and national and international major events. I suppose it was like a time capsule that we could reflect on in the years to come — and we have.

For many reading the blog today, this past year holds a tremendous amount of pain and sorrow. And the thought of “new beginnings” isn’t appealing at all. We want the “old” back…the time when all of our loved ones were here.

For those of us who are grieving, how can we approach the new year?  

For me, it’s all about TRUST.

To move into the new year, if we can find a way to truly trust the Lord with our lives, our sorrow, our pain, our hopes and dreams… all of it, we will discover so much in 2025. It can be a year of joy, even amid grief. A year of learning and growing into who we should be, a year of discovering a deeper intimacy with our Creator, and a year of becoming more like Him.

What does the verb “trust” mean to you? It is a transitive verb, which means there is an object to receive the action, and that “object” is the Lord. Webster offers three definitions.

1. to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of: to believe

Do we rely on the truthfulness and accuracy of the promises that God has given us? Do we believe His Word is true?

2. to place confidence in: to rely on

Where is our hope found? Is our confidence and reliance on Him?

3. to hope or expect confidently

We can “expect confidently,” knowing that God’s promises are true.

What are these promises and truths that we have been given?  There are too many for this blog post, but here are just a few that have special meaning to me as a bereaved mother.

• Even if we don’t feel that God is close to us, He is right there carrying us through. Grief can obstruct our view and alter our perception of His presence, but He has promised to never leave us. He will carry us through the dark days of grief.

• He will strengthen us. As you continue to walk the road of loss, you will be able to look back at the start and see drastic changes in yourself. You’ll see that you have a strength that you didn’t have before.

• The Creator of everything loves each of us with a love that we can’t even fathom. He loves us so much that He gave His life for us so that we could be in fellowship with God and spend eternity with Him and those who have gone there before us. Nothing we can do can earn this love. It’s a completely free gift of God. And nothing can separate us from His love.  

Entering a new year with a load of grief can be daunting and you may be feeling a sense of dread. When you find a way to truly trust Him, you will find peace. 

One more thing about trusting God. When we fully trust Him, we discover that He will use our suffering for His glory and for our good. I didn’t say that the suffering or tragedy itself is good, but the results certainly can be. When we trust God through our suffering, we are changed, matured, and shaped into people who have a different understanding of earthly life and of eternal life. We can live a life with purpose, fulfillment, and joy, even amid the temporary grief we encounter while living on earth. 

As we enter a new year, we can fully trust God with our lives. He will bring beauty from ashes and make new streams in the desert. He will comfort and strengthen us, and fill us with His peace and joy.

Now that’s a new year that we can look forward to.

Trust Him.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. — Romans 15:13

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. — Isaiah 26:3-4

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. — Proverbs 3:5–6

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39