I wonder, how was 2025 for you? Perhaps it’s been a year of saying ‘goodbye’, or perhaps it’s been a year of saying ‘hello’. Maybe 2025 has been a year of good stuff. Then again maybe 2025 has been a year of bad stuff.

Or what about, starting a new hobby, or job or relationship, or post-illness recovery?

Or a year of just trying to make it through with family, financial, and work challenges?

The chances are that 2025 has brought a whole host of things to your door, the ‘good’, the ‘bad’ and the ‘rather have avoided that completely’. The turning of the year is as good a time as any to take a moment to pause and to look back, to reflect on the year that has been, the challenges that have been faced, the impossibilities that have been overcome. There are all sorts of ways we can do this. One Christian practice often used at the end of a day, or year, is an Examen, basically asking, how was that (looking back), how are things (looking at now) and what are you hoping for (looking forward). This may or may not be a useful practice.

Maybe something as intentional as an Examen feels a bit forced, but perhaps pause and have a think, what moments of delight caught you off guard this year? It doesn’t have to be anything big like winning the lottery. As I write this I’m reminded of one such moment for me this year. When at 7pm one Sunday evening I was supposed to be heading out the door to set up for a course starting at 7:30pm when at just the moment I was about to leave one of my children came in for a hug. So we hugged, and chatted and it was the best reason to be late I could ever have.

Merry Christmas and God bless you in the big stuff and all the small things as you head into 2026, watch out for those wonderful moments when wonder breaks through.

Tim