Under the Last Moon of 2025

I didn’t begin this year with a plan.
Just a whisper in my chest that said,
Begin anyway.

So I did.

Post by post.
Prayer by prayer.
Poem by poem.

Sometimes I wrote from joy.
Sometimes from ache.
Sometimes from the kind of silence
that only God hears first.

And somewhere between the early-morning skies,
the quiet car rides,
the hollow-bone reflections,
and the unexpected beauty of ordinary days—
something inside me softened.

I stopped needing to “arrive.”
Stopped chasing urgency.
Stopped forcing the story.

And instead, I let life
— and God —
unfold me slowly.

This space became a living prayer:
A place for truth,
for tenderness,
for reverence,
for becoming.

A place where the moon reminds me
that even in the dark,
light is never lost —
it’s simply waiting its turn.

Tonight, as the year closes,
I carry gratitude for it all:

The breaking and the mending.
The questions and the quiet knowing.
The grief that still has edges.
The peace that keeps widening.
The way love keeps finding new rooms to live in.

And I don’t need to label any of it
as good or hard
or transformational.

It simply is.
And somehow, that’s beautiful enough.

So here I am —
standing under the last moon of the year,
heart open,
hands unclenched,

saying thank you
for what has been,
and for whatever will come next.

Led.
Held.
Becoming.

Always.

With Grace & Ink,
—Mai