Trust and Surrender

Tonight I realized something big about 2026.

I started this year in a hard place. My word for 2026 was YES, but at the beginning of the year I couldn’t have known what that word would come to mean.

Then, unexpectedly, an old coworker crossed my path again.

He didn’t have to do anything dramatic. He recognized me. He said hey. He smiled. But seeing someone again who had known me during the children’s shelter years brought an entire part of my life back to the surface.

He reminded me of the shelter.

The shelter reminded me of my stories.

The stories reminded me of my skills.

And the skills reminded me of myself.

Those memories eventually became Stars in the Sky. 

At the same time, I started recognizing things in myself again that had felt buried after a difficult professional season. I began trusting my instincts with children again. I could see the patience, connection, calmness, and ability to help a dysregulated child that I had used years ago at the shelter showing up again in my work today.

He didn’t intentionally do all of that. He probably has no idea about most of the ripple effect. But his reappearance became part of the process that helped me remember.

I also realized why his personality has always stood out to me. At the shelter, I knew him as friendly, funny, easygoing, and someone who would start talking and make people comfortable—even new people. We worked around each other, had suppers together, and I had the chance to see that side of him in ordinary life. Now our school encounters have mostly been quick hellos and smiles, which is funny considering I know he can say more than “hey.” 

But even those little encounters mattered to me.

And tonight, looking at my prayer, I finally understood what so much of this year has been teaching me:

TRUST AND SURRENDER.

Surrender doesn’t mean I stop caring.

It doesn’t mean I stop hoping.

It doesn’t mean the people who matter to me suddenly stop mattering.

It means I don’t have to control the outcome.

I don’t need to know exactly where my career is going.

I don’t need to know every reason something happened.

I don’t need to know the ending before I can trust God with the story.

He was part of learning that lesson because his reappearance brought up memories, feelings, questions, hopes, and uncertainty that I couldn’t completely control. Yet so much good came out of what I could not have planned.

One person unexpectedly reappeared—and it helped lead to shelter memories, a book, renewed confidence, greater understanding of my professional strengths, and a deeper lesson about trusting God.

That is why 2026 really has become my Year of YES.

Maybe YES was never supposed to mean, “Everything will be easy.”

Maybe it meant:

YES to remembering.

YES to healing.

YES to using what God has given me.

YES to surrender.

YES to trust.

YES to the next chapter.

YES—even when I don’t know what comes next.

And maybe the sentence I want to remember most from tonight is:

“I don’t need to know the ending in order to trust God with the story.”

I can thank God for what this year has taught me, and I can be grateful for his unexpected part in it, without needing to know what happens next.

Thank You, God.

And yes—one step at a time.