Under the Blank Slate


Hi Friends,

We had a huge blizzard this past weekend that dumped over a foot of snow in 24 hours. We woke up to a blanket of white.

My kids are thrilled to have more snow shoveling gigs than they can handle. They shovel, stop by the house for snacks, throw their soggy gloves back on and head out to sled. After sledding? Shoveling… and repeat.

Heavy snows seem to come at the beginning of January each year in the Midwest, and it always feels like they give the perfect visual for a new year.

A field of snow without even a single footprint. A blank slate. A fresh start.

But this year, I’m pondering what’s under that snowfall.

Underneath the snow blanketing my backyard are the Nerf bullets we failed to pick up, the poison ivy in one garden bed I can’t seem to get rid of, another garden bed in which I never cleaned up the debris of dead, brown tomato plant branches.

Under the blank slate of our new year, there lies all kinds of things, too. The good choices — like seeds we planted — from last year that will come up and bear fruit. The felt absence of seeds we wish we’d planted and didn’t.

There’s also the debris…

Less innocuous than forgotten nerf bullets, the actions of others can leave mementos of pain strewn about in our hearts, just under the surface.

But if there’s anything I learned of the Lord in 2024, it’s that He’s a perfect Shepherd who leads with gentleness, wisdom, and patience.

Not in a hurry, not unaware, He knows just the things to uncover at just the right time.

Our part? To say yes. To not look away. To stand so confident in His love for us that we can risk facing our brokenness as we wait for His healing.

If you’re stepping into the blank slate of this New Year aware of things waiting beneath the surface, join me in this prayer:

Jesus, have your way. All that lies underneath the surface of my heart is Yours. Come heal, and bring forth life in every way.

– Anna

Anna Blanc

I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.

Read more from Anna Blanc

Hi Friends, I’ll never forget it. I showed up for class in college, slid into my seat, and noticed the girl on my left had a large smudge on her forehead. She was an acquaintance, and in my earnestness to be a “real friend”, I pointed it out. “You have something on your forehead”, I said, gesturing to her as if wiping at my face. “It’s Ash Wednesday,” she said, turning in her seat. Whoops! Neither my husband nor I grew up in churches that followed the church calendar or included liturgy. So...

Hi Friends, Last week we talked about finding every last bit of our ordinary lives in the grand storyline of God. This week, let’s look at how we help one another do just that. When Eugene Peterson counseled pastors on how to help their parishioners find themselves in God’s story, he said, “Listening is the first step. It is the precondition for… making the transition from what a person perceives as alienation and experiences as a jumble of unrelated irrelevancies to a sense of coherence and...

Hi Friends, Sometimes we do this thing when we read the stories of people in the Bible. We wake up early to read Scripture, and we see the epic work of God in and through the lives of men and women. Then we put down the book and head to the kitchen to clean up the sea of Crispix a sleepy kid spilled across the floor. Back to normal life. But I want to alert you to something real happening in your life. As real as the cereal you crushed under foot and now have to find the hand broom to sweep...