What if you didn't have to change?

Good afternoon, friends, and happy New Year! Or should I say, happy start of another trip around the sun?

We’re just a few days into January, and already the air is thick with the pressure to do more, be better, and finally become the perfect version of ourselves. You know the drill: new diets, gym memberships, planners promising that this year will be the one where you get your life in perfect order.

But what if I told you that you didn’t have to change at all?

The poet John O’Donohue once wrote, “May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.” That’s not a call to hustle harder—it’s an invitation to slow down, breathe, and recognize that simply being alive is a miracle. What if this year wasn’t about fixing yourself but about noticing yourself? Noticing where God is already at work in your life, not because you earned it, but because you are beloved.

Similarly, the poet Mary Oliver reminds us in her poem Wild Geese, “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.” What a relief, right? You don’t have to punish yourself into becoming someone new. Instead, maybe this year can be about paying attention—paying attention to the moments when you feel fully alive, paying attention to the people you love, and paying attention to God’s quiet invitations to grace.

Now don’t get me wrong—growth is good. Becoming more fully who God created us to be is a lifelong journey. But that journey doesn’t begin with a list of goals or a new workout routine. It begins with grace. With resting in the knowledge that you are already loved, already held, already enough.

So here’s my invitation for this new year: Instead of resolutions, what if you made room for wonder? Instead of trying to fix everything, what if you trusted that God’s love is already at work in you, shaping and transforming you in ways you can’t yet see?

As we step into another year, may you awaken to the beauty of your life as it is. May you notice the sacred in the ordinary. May you be astonished by grace, and may you have the courage to tell others about it everywhere you go! 

As you lean into this invitation of wonder and grace, here’s a prayer to try on for the new year. I would love to hear your story about how it has shaped your imagination!

An Enough Prayer for the New Year

God of beginnings and grace,

Help me to lay down the weight of self-improvement and take up the lightness of your love.

Teach me to slow down, to pay attention, to savor this wild and precious life you’ve given me.

And in the moments when I feel like l’m not enough, remind me that I already am.

In your love, I choose to rest and rejoice.

Amen.

Onwards and upwards-

Joshua+