New Year

Next Year’s Word

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What word(s) is next year’s Voice speaking to your heart? Take a minute to be still. Listen to what Jesus is singing over you for this next year.
Is it peace? Rest? Provision? Is He covering you with healing and wholeness? Is He hiding you under His wings? Is He bringing you to a new place and new relationships? Is He delivering you from things not meant for you? Ask Him. He will tell you in the unique way He speaks to you. There is a plan and purpose for this next year and He will walk with you and me through it – right next to us, never leaving us, and never forsaking us.
He is good, He is safe, He is for us. You are so loved. Peace be with you.

God’s Peace

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For 2026: This scripture is how I want my life to look – more Jesus, less worry, bathed in His peace, seeking & finding His character and compassion in a world where it seems to be lacking, and leaving a trail of kindness and compassion everywhere He sends me.

Space

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I pray as 2026 looms near that we find our voices, sink our roots deeply into the space God has planted us, and thrive. He knows the plans He has for us and He knows the way you will positively impact those He has placed around you – it’s not by chance that you are where you are. You are so loved. Peace be with you.

God of Hope

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As the new year approaches, let’s trust that God has us and will never let go. We can’t see what’s unfolding for 2026, but He can. He’s there preparing the path before us, making a way around, over, and through whatever comes our way. May we overflow with joy, peace, and love. May it splash over onto everyone we meet.

The Divine Series

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I’m excited to showcase my books on The Divine Series page. Follow the link to my Author page

https://www.amazon.com/author/melissagiomi

Raw

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Raw

The morning view from my kitchen window is filled with shafts of pink and pale orange that stripe the sunrise sky and mix with the slate grey of the cloud cover. It’s so quiet and still. The neighbor’s fig and plum trees have lost all their leaves. The branches look stark and raw stripped of their leaf cover. Raw…

I’m the first one up except for the dog and cats. The house is chilly as the heater begins its task of warming things up. I love the feeling of my warm coffee mug bringing warmth to my chilled hands. It’s comforting. It’s soothing. It’s routine and I look forward to it every day.

Standing at my kitchen window watching the Creator begin painting the sky with even brighter hues and bursts of brilliance that word, raw, simmers in my brain. I feel raw this morning. It can be defined as in its natural state; not yet processed or purified; not analyzed, evaluated, or processed for use.

The Christmas season is over and the new year looms ahead. I always feel off-kilter and unsettled this time of year. The build up and anticipation, the plans and decorations, the bright glitter and shine, the special food and the hope of seeing loved ones has worn off and dulled. Putting it all away for next year, the clearing up and cleaning out, the good-byes and see ya laters await and it all just feels raw and painful. So much can happen in a year, a month, a minute and I am not a fan of uncertainty. I try to live in the moment and let go of worry, fear, lack of control and lean into the new, the blessings and adventures that will come.  But it’s still hard. My emotions are raw and chaotic. They need a resting place. Help, Jesus…

As I watch the morning unfold on my patio trying to sort my thoughts, a feeling of safety and tucking-in surrounds me. It’s beautiful and startling. I know it’s You. The comforting words of Psalm 139: 1-2 open up in my mind, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.” As Your words soak in, the pent-up emotions and chaos tumble forth. You understand the raw, the chaos, and the frantic unsettled feelings that don’t have a place to land. You are the landing place and the wide-open hands. You are the Alpha and Omega, the One who can sort, sift and make any sense of the jumbled thoughts and rawness. You are the One who calms and smooths out the unanalyzed, the not yet processed, natural state of the human heart and You purify it. It feels freeing, safe, and cleansing giving it to You in its raw, clouded and mixed-up state.

With You, I don’t have to tone it down, gauge the emotional capacity of the one I’m sharing with, dismiss and diminish myself and the rawness of my emotions in order to protect someone else, or use copious amounts of humor to tame it and make it palatable to another. With You, I am just me – all the raw feelings, the laughter and tears, the rumblings, the nonsense, the hope, and the fluttering anticipation that watches and waits to see what blessings You will pour out this year.

We all need a safe, protected place to just be with Someone who knows every single thought, emotion and the reasons behind each of them.  It is a beautiful, holy and sacred thing to be raw. No holding back – no lengthy explanations and justifications. The whole of our humanity in the presence of the One who created every nuance.  I never fully realized how freeing and breathtakingly intimate it is to be raw in the presence of God. It is sacred ground.

Beginnings

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Happy New Year’s Eve! I wonder how you are doing in these strange, limbo, off kilter in-between days – where the festive fanfare and anticipation of Christmas is fading and a new year of the unknown looms large? Where the once joyful, nostalgia of a decorated mantle, fragrant lit-up tree and Christmas music begins to grate just a touch because it’s lost the excitement and build up of emotions that only the holidays bring us…

It’s a strange and uncomfortable feeling each year. I never quite know what to do with it or what space to give it. What does it want from us and how do we reconcile and allow the deflated feelings of loss, nostalgia, let down and possibly regret co-mingle with the wonder, anticipation, and adventure of a brand-new year?

I am not one for making new year’s resolutions. I have new things I want to explore in this new season of life as an empty nester and some habits I’d like to redirect. I have plans for a second book, setting healthy boundaries in my relationships, meeting new people and some volunteering. All good things. There are specific words that over the past few weeks consistently pop into my mind. Change. Flexible. Gentle. Trust.

I am choosing to give these words space and permission to enter into 2023 with me. It isn’t easy. I want to know all the who, what, where, when, why and how. I like to rehearse, plan, and plot it out because that is what I usually do. It’s my M.O. It gives the façade of safety, but if I’m honest, it is based in fear and worry.

These words – change, flexible, gentle, trust – are not words I associate with myself – often quite the opposite. However, this year they fill me with curiosity and a sense of adventure; a sense of awe because I know that Jesus is standing at the threshold of my 2023. His scarred hands reaching for mine asking me to let go of regret, worry, expectations (especially of myself) and control. I’m being asked to trust Him with all that I see coming, all the worst-case scenarios that my mind likes to create, all the what-ifs and futile attempts to fix, control, and protect. He’s asking me to trust Him with myself and my loved ones.

Do I truly believe He has plans to prosper and not to harm, plans for hope and a future that is good, safe, and exactly what is needed? Yes, I do believe that. I want to learn to stop trusting in my own short-sighted understanding and in all ways acknowledge that He will direct my path and my family’s path. Will this be easy and trial free? No, life is hard, and things happen. Will I never allow worry, a stray wild thought, fear, or the need to control overwhelm me and set me back a bit? No. I won’t do this perfectly, but I will try to be gentle with my soul. Will I feel all the feels that go with living in this world and bumping up against others? Yes.

My hope for this year is that when situations and feelings knock at my heart’s door, I will learn to give them space, sit with them, and see them (yell at them, if needed) allowing them to teach me and letting them go into His hands.

I will pray this scripture over myself and my family in 2023 and wait in anticipation to see prayers answered, paths straightened, fear bow at His name, joy restored and peace to have room to heal and calm my heart. And rest, blessed rest.

Isaiah 61:3 NIV

“…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”

“For 2023, may God help us all fast regrets and cease dragging old, dead things with us into the new, abundant life that Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection made possible.” Dr. Alicia Britt Chole