This morning I settled down with my coffee and the YouVersion bible app and the verse that popped up made me smile and nod my head to God. He knows me so well that He made sure my first verse of the year was one of the life verses I have written in my heart.

“Forget the former things ; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I  am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:18-19

I let those words come to me and I held them to my heart,   repeating the words out loud to give them the power and space they deserved and that my heart needed so much. 

2025 was a year of beginnings and endings.  There are things that I wish I could do over, words I would have loved to say and other things I wish I hadn’t said or written. 

I wish my body had healed completely and that my optic nerve had suddenly started getting all the blood flow and nutrients it needed… but   that didn’t happen then which is why  I am letting go of that regret- that question I have asked myself so many times-”Would have, could have, should have”   it has no place in this New Year,

Instead of  wishing I had sent handwritten letters to my Aunt that went to Glory in June, I will send letters to others as they come to my mind. I will use the cards and stationary that I have collected and mail them off the old-fashioned way.  That is practically a new thing because this has become a time of quick and easy emails and texts and instant communication,

I can’t undo the past. None of us can… but we can start doing things we wish others would have done for us,with us and to us.

So for this New Year, I will try to be more forgiving, more loving, more intentional and more patient. I will try to lean closer on Jesus’s truth and less on Jeanna’s feelings.  

That will be a much better way of living because His truth never changes and my feelings can run wild depending on how much sleep I have gotten, how much food I have eaten and what I have done that day.  

One thing that has to stay the same is the simple joy of CAJ- coffee and Jesus- every morning. This is what sets my day is motion, what gives me fuel and literally and figuratively fills my cup to overflowing .

  There is another scripture verse that I plan to work on this year- it is a beautiful visual that just feels so good and right to me- 

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you;bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3;3

Happy New Year to y’all. May you know the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.   May you draw closer to Jesus as each day dawns and may you bind love and faithfulness around your neck and write them on your heart.