It’s that time again—when I pause to reflect on the word I hoped would define last year and look ahead to my word for the next. My word for 2025 was “Faithful.” While I wasn’t as faithful in pursuing the Lord as I had hoped, He remained abundantly faithful—just as Scripture promises: “Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Looking back, I can clearly see His steady work in, through, and around me, even when my own commitment wavered.
As I considered a word for 2026, “Peaceful” came to mind—peace in my soul, peace in my life, and peace in the world around me. That longing likely came from feeling anything but peaceful. The world felt unsettled, my life overwhelmingly full, and internally, I noticed growing irritability and a desire to withdraw. While some of that drove me toward good things—time alone with the Lord, prayer, and an increased longing for His return—there was also a self-focused element that was breeding discontentment rather than rest.
Through honest conversations with friends and wise medical counsel, I began to consider that perimenopause might have a thing or two to do with it. So, in January, I started hormone replacement therapy, for which I’m very grateful. While my new estrogen patch doesn’t create spiritual peace, bring calm to our household calendar, or quiet the chaos of the world, it has restored a measure of physiological balance that has felt like a gracious gift from God—one that has helped me think more clearly and engage more fully in the life He has given me.
Still, I know this: no medication, change in circumstances, or amount of solitude can give my soul the peace it ultimately longs for. That deeper peace—the kind Scripture calls “the peace that surpasses all understanding”—comes only from God. Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27).
Indeed, Biblical peace is richer than calm feelings or conflict-free days. The Hebrew word for peace, “shalom,” means wholeness—restoration of what is broken. While hormone replacement therapy can help bring balance to my body and a lighter load can help bring calm to our home, only Christ can take a fragmented life—and a fractured world—and make it whole. Our deepest fracture and source of unrest is not circumstantial but spiritual. Sin broke our relationship with God, but through Christ’s death and resurrection, that relationship is restored—we are reconciled to God. Christ is the foundation of every other kind of peace. He is, after all, the Prince of Peace—the Administrator of Shalom.
So, as I step into 2026 with the word “Peaceful,” my prayer is not simply for quieter days or calmer emotions, but for a deeply rooted peace—anchored in the truth that I have been reconciled to God through Christ. He is my peace, and He is with me and for me in all things.
By Katie Miller
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