Well, we have flipped the calendar over into a new year.

Alot of people start new year’s resolutions at this time of year. I’ve decided that instead of jumping into something that requires a lot of energy like a new exercise plan or launching a new endeavor, I will be shifting how I function at home with a gentle release of something and a refocusing in others but without a lot of hard work. This will be preparing time. Seeing what is. Deciding what is no longer needed and can be let go of and what is needed to grab hold of for the next season. Then when Springs comes. I will GO like the rest of God’s creation to shoot forth new life.

In the meantime, it is slow and stopping, watching and waiting, praying and listening.

Rumblings of 2025

I’ve started doodling alongside the scriptures I have been reading. Nothing wild or elaborate. Just simple touches of ART, which was a word from last year that I would like to continue.

My prayer:

I pray for wisdom, joy and peace!

2025 Focus:

“the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to the brightness”

– The Bright Field

This year I want to turn toward the light and brightness of things and let every “dark and ugly” thing pass on by. 2025 will be like a refocusing – an echo of 2024 but with the intended focus.

Last year, the Lord said, it would be a year of grace, dumpster loads of grace, but I had also felt that the year was going to be like a dumpster fire, and I was going to have to see the grace. Which honestly was hard to see. I saw “dumpster fire” and missed a lot of the grace.

But sometimes you can’t tell people, you have to show them. There was a lot of dumpster fires in 2024. I also heard and saw a lot of people online saying that exact term. But God promised His grace and it was there.

I would write more poetry last year than I had in a good long while and I was to prepare. While things at home seemed to be hard, full of grief because of my mother in law’s death, and just messy. At church, where I work, I was preparing a new way of functioning in the office. It was great! This year, that preparing is here at home.

Some tidbits I sense the Lord highlighting for 2025:

• Behold: Walk Circumspectly! Ephesians 5:15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. This word Circumspectly means to look around on all sides watchfully, cautiously, prudent, examining. Basically, don’t get caught coasting, skating by without focus.
• Double Grace: The two thousand and twenty fifth year. 5 is the number of grace. The Hebrew letter Hey (ה) is equal to 5: Is a picture a man with arms raised. The meanings include look, reveal, breath, and behold. I am expecting God to save us in new ways this year.
• See the grace: Your perspective shapes your reality, and the words we speak will either build or break the world around you. Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
• Don’t flip the truth: True healing comes not from ignoring our feelings, but from acknowledging them and submitting them to God, who will guide us. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
• Love not the world: Being consumed by worldly affairs makes us spiritually immature and fruitless, like a dead fig tree in need of revival. 1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
• Remain in Christ: Abiding in Jesus and confronting our internal struggles allows us to grow stronger and bear fruit, even through the pruning process. John 15:5-6  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.⁶ If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
• Come to Christ: Amid the avalanche of life, remember to pause, breath, and look for the grace – it’s in the moments of rest that we find the strength to move forward. Matt 11:28-30 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

It is time to grow UP through the darkness and the hard ground! #shiftforward – Find your sustenance in me, says the LORD, ” I am your daily bread.”

Bottomline:

“See what is, stay connected to self and God, and embrace the grace given.”

Starla Smith

Thanks for Listening,

Starla