Happy 2026!! We’re midway through this year’s first month, but I wanted to take a moment and share a lovely sentiment a friend sent me:

When I say Happy New Year, I’m really wishing you more happy days than sad, more joy than misery, more laughter than tears, more bravery than fear, and the wisdom to accept that they all belong.” –Donna Ashworth

There’s a Pixar film entitled Inside Out that I watched the sequel to recently. It’s an animated look at the emotional conflicts human beings feel when encountering life challenges. Here’s a little overview, if you haven’t seen it: each human emotion is depicted as its own character, and these emotions are in constant interaction and even in competition with each other in their mutual desire to help the main character (Riley) be her best self.

My husband doesn’t quite see the values I see in this movie. I remember once sharing my revelation with him about one of the last scenes where “Joy” learns something from “Anxiety” after “Anxiety” learns something from “Joy,” he kind of looked at me quizzically and clarified, “we are talking about an animated movie, right?” Well, yes; but for me at least, that scene depicts the internal wrestling of pure unadulterated emotions that I think most of us can relate to, especially when we’re struggling to make decisions. And how it’s tempting to think of feelings and even situations in life as “bad” when we’re experiencing sadness or anxiety, and there’s this tendency to want to push them away and not give them credence because, let’s face it, it doesn’t feel good, right?

Our society seems to work really hard at creating medicinal cures and outside distractions in attempts to keep us “happy.” But are we? If you’ve heard anything like the statistics I’ve come across, we’re more stressed out than ever! What’s more, I think there’s this notion that stress and busy-ness are all there is in life.

Truth is, though, we are not simply the product of this or that fleeting emotion, deeply seeded darker feelings, or mistakes. Not even our accomplishments or positive decisions define us, as much as this world would like us to believe.

Instead, we’re all such a blend of so many belief systems and environmental factors that have contributed to who we are, and still, we are so much more than that! My faith has taught me that we are infused with our Creator’s Spirit, and that we are inherently *good*….it is only because of our fallen human nature that we have a hard time facing life’s challenges with faith.

So back to this whole notion of Joy vs Anxiety: Having struggled with anxiety myself, it took me years of learning that anxiety in and of itself is not bad. If you’ve done any reading in psychology, you may have learned that a little bit of anxiety before giving a speech or writing an important paper can actually be motivational in pushing you to do your best work. But mine was more of the disordered kind, and I actually for years believed the lie that constant nagging anxiety that overshadowed everything I did and said was inevitable, especially on Saturdays. For a variety of reasons, I learned from an early age that as a wife and a mom, Saturdays were meant for doing everything around the house I wasn’t able to get through during the week, and do it perfectly, leaving me utterly overwhelmed at the sight of all the work before me, and exhausted by Monday. Grace has helped me to tweak a few things (story for another post) and remind me that I have a choice in how much credence I give anxiety (just enough to motivate me), and that I have the power within to choose joy…even on a Saturday!

This is one way Grace has enlightened me to see that making emotional-based decisions in life is self-sabotaging, that making value-based decisions are ultimately what bring us to the fullness of joy which God ultimately wants for us.

So, with this little insight in mind for the day, I allowed myself a bit of sleeping in time without the self-imposed guilt, followed by morning prayer time with my husband (without allowing the nagging voice in my head to remind me of all the things I had lined up to do afterwards), and a fruitful day filled with lots of household things, yes–but with a different focus, and that has made all the difference.

That is my wish for each of you who may be struggling with similar thought-processes. Resolutions aside, I truly wish you (with Donna Ashworth’s sentiment included): a Happy New Year!!