Who do you want to be?

And that’s a wrap! Christmas 2025 is in the books, and was it ever a doozy. For two weeks, normal life was suspended as the food furnaces (thinly disguised as young men) descended upon my kitchen.

“So far, an actual king could have been ransomed from a band of unruly kidnappers by what we have spent on groceries,” I told my friends just before the boys arrived. The erstwhile friends promptly howled, clutching what I suspected to be much fatter wallets than the one I held. No one (I noticed this, too) offered to donate to my Give-Send-Grocery fund. Huh.

Anyway, it was magical. If “magical,” that is, equates to the finger cymbals one of them had delivered to the house by Amazon as a surprise. Drat you, Steve Urkel, for debuting them on that Family Matters episode. I took a moment to spank myself for ever having let them watch the show at all as kids, then wandered to the kitchen to load the dishwasher. Again.

Collectively, we blew through movies, homemade pumpkin spice lattes, table games, and foosball, and most of it in our pajamas. Then came Taco Night. For an hour, I turned my kitchen over to The Fab Four. Suddenly, the counters on which you could land a Boeing were buried beneath every conceivable taco topping. That quick, then, the holiday was over, and they were gone.

With a quiet house, I can hear myself think again. No cymbals are clacking. No one is singing carols in falsetto. The Keurig is no longer wheezing, and I can reflect for a bit on the passing of another year.

For our family, 2025 was a year of big changes. Our last child graduated from high school. We sold the boys’ childhood home and moved to a new town. Mr. Last started college, and his sibling started a new job in another state. Suddenly, we were back down to just three. It was a time of big transitions, which, though good, were still big and hard. Such is the nature of transitions.

Before opening gifts on Christmas Day, Mr. Schrock asked all of us a question. Where did we want to be in another year? It was a worthy question, and it prompted sincere reflection. One by one, we shared from our hearts what our desires were. We knew that what he was really asking was, “Who do you want to be this time next year?”

Who, indeed?

There is something about the ending of an old year and the beginning of a new one that invites such contemplation. For some, 2025 was miserable. Dark themes like loss, disappointment, and failure were the soundtracks of their lives. For them, December 31 brought no highlight reels with perfect lighting on Instagram.

Others, meanwhile, celebrated their wins and accomplishments, bounding eagerly into the new year. For them, January 1 was exciting, brimming with the promise of new worlds to explore and conquer. Today, though, it is the former group to whom I speak.

For those who felt no celebration as the great, crystal ball was dropping, I say to you, “It’s okay.” To those who barely limped over the line, I say to you, “It’s okay.” In particular, to all who writhed over their failings and flaws exhibited in the last 12 months, I say it to you as well, “It’s okay.”

It is here that I will take you back to my husband’s question. “Where do you want to be in a year from now?” Or in my paraphrase, “Who do you want to be in a year?”

We cannot prevent hard things from happening. Life quickly teaches us that there is much that’s outside of our control. Eventually, we learn that the only thing we can control is how we handle the hard when it comes.

We can choose to be bitter and stay there. We can choose to be resentful, spewing our anger on those nearby. We can choose to minimize all risk, curling into self-protective balls, refusing to let others get close. We can choose to feed despair when it comes, drawing it close and tight. Lastly, we can choose to make excuses for our failures, flailing and laying the blame on anyone and everyone else.

In truth, there are no circumstances, nothing that can happen to us that can actually prevent us from personal growth and health. Nothing, that is, but our choices.

If we want to live lives of significance, lives that matter, then we must be people of character. Character includes taking responsibility for our own choices, admitting when we’re wrong and then changing, no matter what the cost.

Character requires us to do good at every opportunity, even in the midst of our own pain. It is possible to hold personal suffering and care for others in both hands. In fact, I contend that character is formed by serving others from our own lack. If we wait to do good until life is easy, we will never do it, and we will certainly miss out on unspeakable blessings.

Character makes room for hope. No passive resignation, this, but an active expectation that there is yet good in this world and that we shall live to see it. It insists, in fact, on clinging to the presence and power of hope in the darkest night. For character, you see, is founded on faith and grounded in love, facing the future with a calm resolve.

Now. Who do you want to be this time next year?

The small, caffeinated American mom gives thanks for the character growth the year brought. She also gives thanks for the characters that call her Mom and for their wise father. She maintains that the entire country could benefit from a new holiday, National Pajama Day, for it would keep citizens from hooting, looting, and shooting if they were home and relaxed in their jammies. Congress, we’re looking at you. Let’s go!