A New Year Opens


The year behind me: a book laid open,
With stories both joyful and hard to behold.
I invite those tangled mem’ries to surface,
And cherish those longing to be retold:

Here I loved well;
Here, made brave choices; and
Here’s where my friends helped my brokenness mend.
That goodness blesses me, grateful and hopeful,
As last year’s pages come to their end.

Spirit, keep my eager heart softer and open
To mem’ries whose bitterness still bears a sting.
For harms I wielded, may I seek forgiveness;
Let go of resentment to which I still cling.

Here I struggled;
And here my anger grew;
Here’s where my loneliness turned to despair.
May I humbly sift through those sobering stories
For courage that stirs me to growth and repair.

Yet deeper pain appears in some pages:
They’re tear-stained and torn where grief raked my heart.
Not only errors and failures and struggles,
But losses that shook my world apart.

Here, a death I mourned;
Here, a sad farewell;
Here’s where I’m haunted by what might have been.
O Spirit: Hold me, restore me, and heal me;
Sustain me with hope as a new year begins.

A new year opens, its blank space a threshold
For all that seems possible in the Unknown.
May we meet the Myst’ry and all of its promise:
Companions who choose not to journey alone.

When will joy burst forth?
Where will grief rain down?
How will we meet each new day that arrives?
May our loving choices become a bold chorus:
A “yes” to the forming edge of our lives.