Welcome to 2026. Here’s a random New Year post just because I can.

As always, I spent the week between Christmas and New Year reflecting on the year that was 2025. I reflected on the goals that got kicked, the things I forgot about and should reprogram into my life again… and the things that I didn’t do, perhaps because they weren’t from God in the first place (just from my frazzled brain instead).

I’ve hit the reset button and have some fresh ideas and projects that I’ve put on the table for 2026. Although in reality, whilst these ideas might look fresh, they’ve actually been sitting on the list for a few years now, waiting for the right time.

Apparently the time is now.

2025 was a bizarre year for a number of reasons, including the fact that I didn’t have a bible verse that I prayed over the year as I’ve done every other year since 2004.

I sensed God saying not to have a verse last year. Instead of that, he gave me the word ‘rest’. Ironically, the year was anything but restful and so I’ve had to reflect in the last week or so on what exactly it was all about with getting that word.

Here’s my thoughts:

God actually had that word for me as the next step in my life. The next part of my path, the next chapter, the next (insert analogy of choice)…

For whatever reason though, there was a pause. (I’ve decided that I was robbed.)

And for that reason, I think, I was just given the word but didn’t have a bible verse to go along with it.

I’m convinced of this because the verses that God has led me to for 2026 are about rest. Instead of the usual one verse, I’ve picked two verses as though making up for last year’s loss (/theft).

It also makes sense to have these two verses as they flow on one after the other mid-sentence in Hebrews chapter 4:

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His.

I’ve gone with the NIV 1984 translation, because, despite its gendered pronoun in v10, it gives a strong sense of ‘stopping work’ and ‘getting a new job’ which 2011 does not.

I really like those ideas.

However, I’ve also reflected in the last week how I do like the idea of having a word for the year along with a verse.

I was chatting through my 2025 reflections with a friend the other day over brunch. We were talking about our goals for the new year. I told her that I thought her word for 2026 was ‘new’.

I told her about my word ‘rest’ and the other words that kept cropping up recently and asked for her help to pick my word.

To cut a long brunch conversation short (and a few following text messages) I can tell you that I’ve actually landed on three words:

BOLD. STRONG. REST.

I’m not much of a painter but I do like to paint word messages onto canvases (and did exactly that with another painting earlier in December). So I’ve already purchased three blank canvases so I can paint a word onto each and reflect on them as I do so.

BOLD. STRONG. REST.

I’m not sure what exactly it all means, but on first reflection a whole phrase dropped into my mind: Come Out Swinging.

I think I’ll put it on a t-shirt.

Yours truly,

Alison