NEW YEAR. NEW ME. THIS TIME WITH GOD.
I remember the first New Year I spent alone in my college apartment. The floor was covered in magazines, half-ripped pages, balled-up paper scattered around me like evidence of a war I was waging against time. I sat there rewriting the same overly categorized checklist—career, faith, health, relationships—editing and re-editing as if the right combination of words could guarantee success.
Year after year, it was the same cycle. Big plans. Big hopes. Bigger disappointment. By December, I’d stare at those unchecked boxes and call the year a failure. What I didn’t realize then was how blinded I was by what didn’t happen that I completely overlooked what did. I was so busy chasing my plans that I missed God’s fingerprints all over my life. If I had stopped long enough to really look, I would’ve seen that many of those boxes had been checked—some more than once—just not in the way I demanded.
Something as beautiful as a New Year often arrives carrying an unbearable weight. Pressure to be better. Pressure to be perfect. Pressure to finally “get it right.” And when life doesn’t cooperate, that pressure turns into shame. I know, because I lived there. That mindset never brought growth—it only overshadowed the grace already at work.
But growth has a way of changing how you see things.
So this year, I did something different. There were no vision boards. No rigid goals. No loud promises spoken out of fear that if I didn’t declare them, they wouldn’t happen. Instead, there was one quiet declaration—soft, surrendered, and honestly a little terrifying.
This year, I choose to do it with God.
It’s vulnerable to say that. It requires trust. But then I remember His track record is flawless—100%. And suddenly, surrender doesn’t sound irresponsible. It sounds wise.
This is where facts meet faith.
Fact one: It is a new year.
Fact two: It is a new me—because if I learned even one lesson, broke one habit, or tried to change in one small way, then I am not the exact person I was before.
Fact three (with a dash of faith): God’s plan is better than mine. Even when I don’t understand it. Even when it interrupts my agenda. Even when the future feels unclear.
So my only goal this year isn’t achievement—it’s alignment.
I challenge you. Whether you already wrote the goals, burned the vision board, or simply whispered, “I’m just grateful to still be here,” take whatever plans you’re holding and place them in God’s hands. The New Year isn’t about starting over—it’s about building forward. Carrying the lessons, the losses, the growth, and believing that God can take every piece and make something new… just like He promised.
Remember Jeremiah 29:11. Remember Isaiah 43:19. Remember what He said when doubt creeps in. And whatever you decide this year, let this be the one resolution that matters:
Do everything with Him.
Until our next collective check-in,
Alexis Wilder
