Dale Lloyd

I hear the striking of the clock;
it tells me day is done.
This day gives way to what comes next—
a New Year has begun.

Resolutions I do not make.
In youth, I made them all,
most only served to mock me
in my very human fall.
I learned I could not live up to
what once was in my head—
when I resolved I must go left,
life turned me right instead.

I planned for long and lengthened days;
night came without a song.
There are questions I no longer press
about where I belong.

And so, I greet the turning year
without a list to bind my days—
no charts to prove my faithfulness,
no vows to measure worth or praise.
I wake instead to daily grace,
sufficient for the step I’m in,
content to walk the path revealed
and leave tomorrow’s map with Him.

I do not need to know what’s next,
or chart the turns ahead—
knowing they all belong to Him,
I rest, at last,
upon my bed.

New Year number seventy-seven
arrives without regret.
As each new day unfolds, with grace,
it will be met.

This is not a shot in the dark,
nor some empty guess.
This truth is what the years behind me
quietly confess.

Grace has met me all my days—
why would it fail me now?
It will carry me through the coming year;
I need not know how.