Looking Forward

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

— Isaiah 43:19

There is something sacred about the space between years. It is a quiet doorway—one foot still planted in what has been, the other hovering over what has yet to take shape. The world often treats this moment as a demand for reinvention, but Scripture invites us instead to pay attention. As the psalmist prays in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” reminding us that reflection itself is a holy act.

As LGBTQ+ people of faith, we know that endings and beginnings are rarely tidy. This year may have held moments of joy and affirmation—or seasons of grief, fatigue, and survival. It may have asked more of you than you ever expected. And yet, here you are. Still breathing. Still standing. Still deeply loved.

When the prophet Isaiah speaks of God doing “a new thing,” it is not spoken to people who are confident or comfortable. It is spoken to a community worn thin by exile and uncertainty. God does not dismiss their past or minimize their fear. Instead, God promises presence right where they are: a way in the wilderness, streams in the wasteland (Isaiah 43:19). Renewal does not require perfect conditions—only God’s faithfulness.

The turning of the year does not erase what came before. It gathers it. Every hard-won truth, every boundary learned, every scar earned through survival becomes part of the soil from which new life grows. In the aftermath of devastation, Lamentations 3:22–23 offers this quiet assurance: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” Newness, in Scripture, is not about forgetting—it is about being met again.

For many LGBTQ+ Christians, the arrival of a new year carries both hope and caution. We have learned that trust is not naive and that faith often carries memory with it. Still, the promise remains. Writing to a community living in uncertainty, Paul reminds them in Philippians 1:6 that “the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.” God is not finished with you—not at year’s end, and not at the beginning of what comes next.

And in the Gospel, we are given a final, steadying word—not a command, but a promise. At the close of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says simply, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Not only in moments of clarity. Not only in seasons of confidence. But always—across thresholds, through uncertainty, and into whatever comes next.

So as this year closes, you are not asked to become someone else. You are invited to become more fully yourself—rooted in truth, shaped by grace, and steadied by the knowledge that you have never walked alone. As the next year opens, may you step forward gently, knowing that love has already gone ahead of you.

As this year fades into memory and a new one opens before you, may you carry forward what has shaped you and release what no longer gives life. May you trust that the love which sustained you this year does not disappear with the turning of the calendar. God is already present in what comes next—quietly, faithfully, and without condition. Wherever the new year leads, may you step into it knowing that you are held, you are seen, and you belong.