New Year’s Eve found us in bluster. Gusts of frigid air drove the falling snow sideways, snatching crystals from the hill’s crown for a second flight. Branches groaned under the weight and strain, and out on the wide waters, geese huddled close around the last open pool. It was a winter wilderness speaking its warning: best to stay inside and wait for morning.

And then, today, everything shifted. The sky rinsed itself into a clear, fierce blue. Clouds drifted light and thin, their edges gilded in the bleach of sun. Untrodden snow lay clean across the yard, clinging to every tender branch, untouched by wind. Only the crossing of a squirrel disturbed the still powder, shaking puff-balls to the ground. Cardinals bright against white, titmice and juncos busy at the feeders — all day, a steady hush cupped the world, holding it in a kind of promise.

Standing here at the edge of this new beginning, I can feel hope pouring itself fresh, just as last night’s ice has already begun to soften under the sun. Hope is not something I manufacture — it arrives. It is given without ledger or limit: this constant renewal, season after season, day after day. It is what God gives freely, in the wide generosity of mercy, and in the smallest details — in the open pool on the freezing lake, in the squirrel’s leap, in the gold light grazing snow.

Let me stand in this cold without turning away. Let me notice the slight thaw that comes when light leans up against shadow. Let me believe the quiet even when the wind rises again, even when the geese lift all at once and the lake seals itself in ice. May this hope stay — not because it’s certain, but because God keeps arriving, again and again, in places that feel left behind.

This is the new day in the new year — the gift of promised renewal. And it is as close as the breath in this cold air and as wide as the field of snow stretching out before me.