A Blank Calendar

January 1, 2026 - New Year's Day

Greg

LGBTQIA+ Person of Faith

Quote

“See, I am making all things new.”

~Revelation 21:5 (NRSV)

Devotion

There’s something both terrifying and exhilarating about a blank calendar. All those empty squares stretching out before us, waiting to be filled with appointments, celebrations, heartbreaks, and ordinary Tuesdays. On New Year’s Day, we stand at a threshold, caught between what was and what might be.

For many of us in the LGBTQIA+ community, the concept of “new” carries extra weight. We know what it’s like to shed old names, old pronouns, old ways of being that never quite fit. We understand the vulnerability of stepping into a truer version of ourselves, even when the world isn’t always ready to receive us. We’ve experienced the grief and the freedom that come with leaving behind relationships, communities, or pieces of ourselves that we’ve outgrown.

When the writer of Revelation proclaims that God is “making all things new,” it’s not a promise of easy renovation or surface-level change. This is the God who creates something from nothing, who brings life from death, who sees the possibility in what others have dismissed as beyond redemption.

What strikes me most about this verse is that it’s in the present tense. God is making all things new, not “will make” or “has made,” but is actively, continually engaged in the work of renewal. Even now. Even in us. Even on this ordinary January morning when the holiday decorations are coming down and regular life is resuming.

This year, you don’t have to be a finished product. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You are allowed to be a work in progress, held in the hands of a God who delights in transformation and who sees the beautiful thing you’re becoming.

Reflection

1. Where in your life right now do you sense God’s ongoing work of making things new, even if it’s uncomfortable or incomplete?

2. How has your understanding of yourself or God been made new through your identity and journey?

Action

Write a letter to yourself to open on December 31, 2026. Include one hope you have for who you’ll be by then, one thing you’re grateful for right now, and one promise you want to make to your future self about how you’ll care for yourself this year.