Ending 2025 by the Sea

2026 Word of the Year: Delight

Last year’s word was “abide,” and boy, did this season require obedience, tolerance, clinging to a few lasting treasures we’ve collected, and dwelling in Christ, no matter what our address.

Brandon and I came to similar words at the same time, so we’re going with what we heard—joy and delight. Please subscribe to my Substack, Palace in Time, for a few words about these words and future meditations from me.

The Year-End Wrap-Up

I certainly had no idea we’d have a permanent mailing address in Wilmington, North Carolina when I started my year-end wrap-up and goal writing last year. Wild!

Favorite Books of 2025

I aimed to read a book a week in 2025. Here are the ones that stuck with me the most this year:

• I began the year reading The Church As Movement by J.R. Woodward, and that book alongside Centering Discipleship by E.K. Strawser helped propel Brandon and I into starting a micro-church in Wilmington (launching sometime this spring). Both books were instrumental in defining what we hope to form (a missional community) centered around becoming mature disciples of Jesus.
• Besides these two books, some of those most formative spiritual or theological books I read this year include The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross by Brian Zahnd, The Seeking Heart by Francois Fenelon, A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly, and Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ by Jeanne Guyon. I’m going to throw The Life Impossible by Matt Haig on this stack too, even though it’s a novel—I’m convinced Haig had to have a mystical experience to write this book.
• My favorite novels from this year were Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love by Marianne Cronin, Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller, Wicked and Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire, and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver,  but my most favorite novel this year was Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.
• Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson was probably the most emotionally challenging book I read this year. It was hard. 
• For some reason, a lot of darker novels landed on my reading list this year, including several psychological thrillers and stories of people coming out of child abuse. It’s hard to say they were good, but they were fascinating, well written, and heartbreaking. I’d put Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman at the top of that list, just below All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, which was, in a word, extraordinary.
• I read a pile of rom-coms again this year but I have to admit I’ve grown bored and irritated by the genre. I don’t expect to read as many in 2026.

If I comment on any more it’ll be an annotated bibliography of 2025. Altogether, I read 59 books this year—you can see the full list on Goodreads here, and if we don’t already follow each other, let’s do that, m’kay? 

Favorite Songs of 2025

Apple tells me that these were my top 10 listened to songs:

1. “Coastline” by Hollow Coves
2. “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young
3. “Starting Over” by Chris Stapleton
4. “Changes” by Langhorne Slim
5. “The Way We Move” by Langhorne Slim
6. “Old Pine” by Ben Howard
7. “So Quiet in Here” by Van Morrison
8. “You & Me” by Dave Matthews Band
9. “Let Things Go” by Caamp
10. “Wild Soul” by Langhorne Slim

Top artists didn’t change a whole lot this year: Dave Matthews Band again, Jackson Browne again, Caamp again, James McMurtry again, and adding Noah Kahan, John Butler, and Mary Chapin Carpenter to the top rotation.

I added quite a few new songs to the “Little Joys” playlist this year, but we also created as “Lovers in Virginia” playlist and a “Carolina on My Mind” playlist that had a lot of air time in our house. Here’s a few favs from Little Joys:

• “Ends of the Earth” Lord Huron
• “World Party” Kate Tucker
• “Only the Wild Ones” Dispatch
• “Walking Each Other Home” Emma Nissen
• “Joy to You Baby” Josh Ritter
• “A Heart That Never Closes” Mary Chapin Carpenter

A Brief Look Back at 2025:

A lot happened this year. Can we leave it at that? No?

As the calendar turns over, nearly every facet of our lives is different now, but several things remain: a deep and abiding love of Christ sustains our marriage and family. We still have two dumb and adorable dogs. I’m still freelancing. Brandon is still playing music and we’re still writing songs together. I still love to cook and read and take walks and do puzzles and listen to music.

I think that might be it. 🙂

Resolutions from 2025 and How They Went:

• I have some specific books I’d like to read toward my 52 books in 2025, including The Lord of the Rings, which I’ve never read, C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy and Till We Have Faces, and Necessary Endings, which Brandon read this year and I think I might need for this season. ← I didn’t read either of those series, but I did read Necessary Endings, and it was very good for this season, more so than I imagined. I did read 59 books, so ✔️
• I want to keep walking each morning or afternoon as long as the weather permits. ✔️
• Maintain a commitment to working as a freelancer, so that there remains space for coffee dates, volunteering, and working on personal writing projects, holding Thursdays for writing. ✔️
• Get away with Brandon to finish some more songwriting ← We went to Virginia and finished 6 songs! Woo hoo! ✔️
• Do something with Some Bright Morning – maybe find an independent publisher this year? Still no movement here, although my friend Emily gave me some great feedback on the book early in the year! Maybe I’ll get back to it in 2026.
• Record audiobooks of American Honey and Ordinary Time ← Halfway there – American Honey is now an audiobook.
• Begin writing the Christmas novel I’ve been chewing on all December ← I wrote a chapter. Progress!
• Reckon with the reality that a second child of mine is going to turn 18 this year. ← Sufficiently reckoned. He graduated in December! WHAT. ✔️
• Be a vessel of shalom for the people in my life. ✔️
• Abide. ✔️

Resolutions for 2026:

• Journal daily – I’d like to log our year of joy and delight, noting what’s bringing us joy and delight in 2026
• Go to the ocean once a week – I got this one from LeeAnn as a great goal for being within 30 minutes of the ocean.
• 52 books – I like this rhythm. It keeps me reading without it feeling like a chore
• Launch WOW book – I can’t wait to bring To Say One Million Times, WOW into the world this spring!
• Try surfing with Henry – I’m going to have to get in shape a bit more to do this one, but why not?
• Start to assemble poems into a collection – I think I’ve got a sizable pile of poems to be thinking in terms of the next book
• Keep writing a novel – I would really like to return to my Christmas novel this year. The story is staying with me, but I know it won’t always!
• Revisit Some Bright Morning and maybe try to publish it – might as well keep this on the list 
• Begin spiritual director certification
• Start a book club for our community
• Start our micro-church meetings

There are other things that may or may not happen this year as well, but these are mostly within my control. I expect to be surprised in 2026. We’ll see what that means when next December 31 comes around!