Gentle year

May this year be gentle with you.

Not loud.

Not demanding.

Not insisting you be more hopeful than your heart can manage right now.

This new year arrives quietly, unfolding without explanation, full of shadows you can’t name

and unknowns that already make your chest tighten.

I won’t call it happy.

Because happiness feels like a dare when you’ve buried parts of yourself in last year’s soil.

Because hope, some days, feels dangerous,

like reaching for something that might disappear again. Like trusting a sunrise after too many nights taught you not to expect one.

So instead, let this be whispered over you:

May this year be gentle.

Gentle with the wounds you carry forward,

the grief that didn’t stay in its calendar year,

the tears that still surprise you in grocery aisles and quiet rooms.

Gentle with the parts of you still learning how to breathe again, the parts that flinch at joy because loss once followed close behind.

May this year not rush you.

May it not shame your slowness.

May it not demand resolutions from a soul that is still recovering.

If growth comes,

let it come softly.

If change arrives,

let it knock instead of breaking the door down.

If joy returns,

let it sit beside your sorrow without trying to replace it.

May this year hold space for your honesty,

for unanswered prayers,

for faith that looks more like clinging than celebrating.

You don’t need fireworks.

You don’t need confetti declarations.

You need mercy in the ordinary.

You need grace in the mornings.

You need a God who walks slowly with you

and does not confuse quiet endurance for lack of faith.

So you step into this year without pretending.

Still aching.

Still believing.

May this year be gentle.

And if gentleness is all it offers,

then maybe—

that will heal what the last one broke.