Here we are, right in between two years. One year ending, another one beginning—just the way it always happens. An age-old story. Christmas is over, and a new, fresh-start is teed up and restless in the wings.

It is a strange time, I think. Are we holding our breath? Are we sad to bid farewell to the good, sweet times of this past year? Or, perhaps we’re eager to punch out, move on.  

As I sweep cookie crumbs and candy sprinkles from beneath the counter’s edge today, and ask my husband to bring the empty ornament and decoration boxes upstairs to pack away Christmas for another year, there is a tune lingering in my head. It is just a wisp of a carol, but it keeps bumping around like only an earworm can, part nuisance and part directive. 

O tidings of comfort and joy, I sing to myself. Again, and again, and again.

We are prone to carrying things with us—all kinds of memories, baggage, our hopes and dreams, our wounds and scars. Stuff clings to us, and try as we might, we will lug most of it, good and bad, into the new year. 

But a new year has no actual page to turn, no physical corner to navigate around. We just bring all the old into the new. In fact, there is nothing unusual or profound about this progression.

Maybe for you, the past year has been a glorious masterpiece. You got to use all the colors in the box. You are so pleased with 2024 that you’ve not even begun to consider 2025. Or maybe, even after you’ve had a beautiful, scrumptious Christmas, you’d like a hard stop to 2024 and a skip-hop into 2025 because the past year was just plain difficult. 

One way or the other, we’re moving into that new year, and soon.

May I share my earworm with you? Tidings of comfort and joy. It is a balm and blessing.

After my first year of college, I worked at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains. Some of you know Camp Fowler, and the lauded Lakeside Lodge that overlooks Lake Pleasant and the gently sloping mountains that ring the far shore. If you do not know this place, you may have had the pleasure of sitting alongside another favored shore, listening to the gentle lapping of water upon rocks, and absorbing the rich, soothing glow of a setting sun. That moment is a generous blessing of peace after a long, hard day.

I’ll never forget the evening I perched upon the bank beside Lakeside Lodge, memorizing the sound, the feel, and the sight of that sacred, special space. A balm. It had not necessarily been a long day, or a hard day, that I can recall. But I had experienced enough hardship already during my short college career to know those days would come. 

The recent spring semester had sucked me dry—Calculus and Economics, the gray, cold of Michigan winter that slouched toward spring, finding roommates for the next year, never sleeping enough, being far from home. Yes, I knew hard days always come. I knew I’d need a balm, and I stored that lakeshore within me for just the right time.

Sometimes, even now, I think about that perfect place of beauty and gentleness, and the kindness it was to my soul. I’m grateful that I intentionally stored it within myself so many years ago.

Even though we celebrate Christmas each year, we tend to think of it as over and done as we move into a new year. As I said earlier, we talk like we pack Christmas (and its decorations) away until the next year. But that isn’t how Christmas works. If anything, we are reminded annually of the gift we’ve been given that we carry with us every day of every year, Jesus, our savior. We don’t receive this gift to put away in a box for the rest of the year. 

What Jesus the savior gives us, is comfort and joy every day, all year, including and most especially, on the longest, hardest days. 

Just like the sweet balm of the lapping shoreline of Camp Fowler, carried along the footpaths and the dorm rooms of college during the bleak midWest-winter, the sweetness of a savior who extends comfort and joy in the harsh, dark days of life is a balm. 

You may be falling headlong into the new year with gratitude, eagerness, and expectation. You might be dragging your feet in dread. Either way, we can’t really know what is coming. We just know this: in each new day, we have a savior who greets us with comfort and joy. Whatever life calls for, Jesus is there, a balm and a blessing. 

So, I raise my glass, to 2025, and I toast you on the journey, too.

May you know comfort and joy in this new year, day by day, and by God’s grace.

Header photo by Tessa Rampersad on Unsplash
Dough and rolling pin photo by Haley Parson on Unsplash

* * * * *

As 2024 draws to a close, we at the Reformed Journal thank you for your friendship and support. If you have not yet done so, we ask for your financial support for the coming year.

“But Wait…There’s More!” is our special offer where we will send you three new books in 2025 as our thank you for a gift of $300 throughout the coming year. That’s $25 per month, less than a dollar a day. (Canadian friends, unfortunately due to exchange rates and bank fees, we need to ask for a $400 annual gift from you.)

The purple button above or clicking here, will take you to a page with details on this year’s special “But Wait, There’s More” offer–three new books from Reformed Journal Books in 2025!

You can use the same page to give an online gift of any amount or to find info on giving by check via mail.

Gifts may be mailed to:
PO Box 1282
Holland, MI 49423

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!