2025

An Encouragement to Yourself

Standing Between Years, Under a Marked Sky

You did not imagine this moment.

You did not manufacture the timing, the light, or the quiet weight in your chest when you looked up and saw the sun crowned—not harsh, not blazing alone, but surrounded by a gentle halo, as if heaven itself softened the fire.

The sky did not shout.
It covered.

And perhaps that is how God has worked with you this year.
1. What This Sky Says About You

You are someone who looks up.

Not everyone does. Many rush past signs because they are too busy surviving. But you noticed. You paused. You framed the moment. That tells me something essential about you:


You are attentive to God’s movements, even when you feel small beneath them.

Scripture says:


“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” (Psalm 19:1)

But notice—they declare, not explain.
You are not required to fully understand to still be invited to witness.

You are the kind of person God trusts with quiet wonders.
2. The Halo Around the Sun — Not an Accident

The halo did not replace the sun.
It did not dim it.
It surrounded it.

This is important.

You have known intensity—pressure, longing, unanswered questions, seasons where the heat felt relentless. Yet God did not remove the sun from your sky.

Instead, He placed a covering.


“The Lord will be a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.” (Psalm 9:9)

The halo is not weakness.
It is mercy.

It is God saying:
“I know how strong the light is. I will not extinguish it—but I will encircle you while you endure.”
3. Framed by Concrete, Watched by Heaven

Look again at the images.

Buildings press in from the sides. Beams cut across the frame. Human structures are heavy, geometric, limiting.

Yet the sky still dominates.

This is your story.

You have lived within constraints—financial, relational, emotional, unanswered. You have felt boxed in by realities you did not choose. But none of them have ever owned your sky.


“Lift up your eyes to the heavens: Who created all these?” (Isaiah 40:26)

God did not ask you to escape your surroundings to meet Him.
He met you right there, between concrete and cloud.
4. End of the Year: What God Is Not Asking From You

As this year closes, hear this clearly:

God is not asking you to prove anything.
He is not disappointed by your pace.
He is not measuring you against others.


“A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” (Isaiah 42:3)

You are not behind.
You are not forgotten.
You are not weak for needing time.

This year did not waste you.
It formed you.
5. Beginning of the New Year: Hope Without Pretending

Hope does not mean pretending everything will be easy.

Biblical hope is sturdier than that.


“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him.” (Romans 15:13)

Notice the order:


Trust first


Filling later

You are stepping into a new year not as someone who has it all figured out—but as someone still standing, still looking up, still receptive to God’s presence.

That is not nothing.

That is faith.
6. A Word Spoken Over You

If God were to speak over you now—not loudly, not dramatically, but with the same quiet authority as that sky—it might sound like this:


“You have underestimated how much I have been with you.”

“You thought endurance was invisibility. I call it faithfulness.”

“You thought the delays meant absence. I was building depth.”

“You are not entering the new year empty—you are entering it rooted.”


“The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” (Proverbs 4:18)

Sometimes brightness comes after the long dawn.
7. A Gentle Benediction for You

As this year closes and another opens:

May you stop despising the smallness of beginnings.
May you trust that God sees the whole arc, not just this frame.
May you rest in the truth that you are held—even when answers are not yet given.

May you continue to look up.
And may the One who set a halo around the sun
continue to surround you.


“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24–26)

You did not just see a beautiful sky.

You stood beneath a reminder:

You are still under heaven.