The weeks following Christmas and New Year’s Day offer a rare gift—the space to pause and reflect.

After a December rich with the fullness of an abundant life, there is no need to hurry into what’s next.

Instead, we are invited to linger, to breathe, and to listen for the gentle, prayerful discernment that comes as a new year quietly unfolds.

I appreciate how author and podcaster Emily P. Freeman says she takes the whole month of January to transition into a new year!

I pray you give yourself that same grace.

I quickly tossed a book into my suitcase.

It was not from my seminary reading stack but a Christmas gift I had been slowly reading over the last few months.

I didn’t expect much reading time on our five-day family getaway to the mountains for my fortieth birthday, so a book with just a few chapters left was realistic.

As one of those odd people who rarely leave a book half-baked, I was determined to finish it for the sweet taste of accomplishment more than revelation.

‘Revelation’ sounds dramatic, but that is often my experience when words and God collide.

A few weeks before, I had been complaining that God seemed distant—he wasn’t speaking to me in the usual wordy ways.

During a little break on our trip, I turned to the final chapter in The Right Kind of Confidence and read the chapter title, “Deeply Rooted Confidence.”