One of my daughters is preparing for standardized testing next week. Her teachers came up with a brilliant idea: Write a letter of encouragement for the students to open on the mornings before the tests, and then one letter of congratulations after the last test is passed in.

As a writer, I went all in! But I was short one appropriate card and time is not on my side today. So I grabbed the one on the top of my stationary drawer (yes, I have one of those and I’mnot70thankyou). A Happy New Year card.

Naturally, by the end of the New Year card (of all I letters I wrote?!), I was crying. I wrote it for my daughter as much as I wrote it for me. And so here it is for you in the adult-version…

Isn’t a New Year card silly?

I always thought a “new year” deeply limited our species. Is just one day per year to start over really enough?

Jesus teaches us that through his love, grace, and forgiveness, every day can be a new day, a new start.

Of course, we can (and should) remember, thank, and celebrate the good in our past. But whenever we’re ready — and mamas, studies show at least 9 seconds ruminating on bad feelings before moving on avoids years of damage — we can forget the moments we don’t want to hold onto any longer. Simply and honestly, we can actually say, “goodbye.”

No matter what happened in decades past, last year, yesterday, this morning, or even two seconds ago, we can take a deep breath and remember God’s love, start fresh right now. Nothing we do or say, no mistake we make, can keep us from this love.

You are ready for this test.

Emily

Have more time?