Looking back on 2025

A few years ago, during a personally trying time in my life, I wrote the following year-end message for our company newsletter. After sharing it with my team, however, they advised against sending it—it felt too raw. "Too soon" they said. I agreed and set it aside.

Some time has passed since then, and I've gained enough distance from those circumstances to feel comfortable sharing it now. So here it is.

In the next couple of days many will gather with colleagues, raise a glass of good cheer and offer up some fine words of congratulation to the loyal and deserving troops they battle alongside everyday. In preparation for the anticipated festivities they'll run backwards through calendars, rummage through project folders looking for pictures. They'll review reports, happy to find accomplishments and milestones worth celebrating. Many will share their “Top Ten”, tell each other how heroic they were, remind each other of how hard they worked and convince each other how much they deserve an extended break.

But what if looking back on the past year is nothing more than a painful reminder that you just didn’t measure up? What if your year was marked by frustration, failure and loss? What if looking back you can only see the smoking craters of lost battles and the bombed out hulks of missed opportunities. What if your memories are dominated by the mistakes you’ve made and the mis-managed messes you have yet to clean up? What if the only thing decorating your world these days is a looming cloud of darkness? What if there’s a weight pressing down on you and instead of dashing through the snow you’d rather crawl into a cold dark corner and hide?

As I ask those questions I hear an old proverb that says “Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.” So far be it from me to burst into anyone’s gloomy countenance with “Fa la la la las.” Yet even with that sage old tip sounding in my ears I do, in fact, hear a song rising too. Carols and proverbs strange bedfellows make. But together they remind me that there is a deeper joy to be experienced even for those who are grieving loss or feeling less than inspired by their performance this past year. Maybe especially so for them.

For “Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”

For the ancients, who saw the day as a “mini life”, each day ended in a death (darkness), and every morning began with a dawn of fresh life. I think we can view the past year as a mini life as well.

We may have started the year all fresh with hope and promise but have become tarnished, scarred, wounded and weary - most of all by our own selfish impulses. As the sun goes down on this year, we have the opportunity to render that life spent, repent, rest peacefully for a spell and then rise to the dawn of a new year.

Merry Christmas!

A Blessed New Year awaits!