*I realized about 400 words in that I had more to say than “hey, here is my word for 2026.” So, because I refuse to fall into the “here is a chicken casserole recipe intertwined in six years of therapy notes” trap, I offer the TL/DR:
Do whatever he tells you.”
Mary, the wedding feast at Cana, Jesus’ first miracle, John 2:5
Growth takes time. It happens the way it happens, and it progresses in the stages it needs.
I have thought for quite some time about a different way to construct that thought. It feels a little pedestrian, like the “duh” factor is a little high. I decided to leave it because sometimes I miss the most helpful ideas precisely because they are obvious. I get caught in this idea that life is complicated and solutions are complicated and any course of merit must also be complicated – all of which is ridiculously and comically incorrect.
…
I remember the first time I saw The Matrix. Ok, so maybe I don’t exactly remember the time, but I remember the feeling of watching people function in a world where skills are downloadable, taking on the time necessary for the data to transfer in. As much as I intellectually understand the host of problems and complications that would cause in actuality, that doesn’t keep it from being a little wishful thinking for my reality.
To think about it another way – baby weight and college. I once heard a woman tell a new mom who was frustrated about pregnancy weight that she was placing unrealistic expectations on herself, that it took nine months to put the weight on, therefore it is not unreasonable for it to take at least nine months to get it off. When my kids try to barrel through college with online classes or hole up in their dorm rooms because people, I try to remind them that the diploma they leave with is only a fraction of the education they will receive. In both instances, there is a journey, steps to complete, lessons along the way, people encountered, experiences, memories, unexpected connections – all of it.
Life wants to be so much more than checking boxes to get through a series of checkpoints.
So, I go back to…
Growth takes time. It happens the way it happens, and it progresses in the stages it needs.
We have discussed my growth spurt. I am thankful for it. And, like all growth spurts, once the new clothes are purchased, the body goes back to its regular pace. We are not meant to live in a space of constant acceleration. Or at least I am not meant to live that way. There has to be a time of reflection, of trying to understand what all of it is for…
Although I am only at the beginning of my PhD program, it is the last step of the journey I embarked on in 2019. When I decided to become a 43-year-old freshman at Georgia Southern University, the goal, the purpose, was always the hoodie. While I understand how odd that can sound, in fairness, I didn’t have a vocabulary for anything else. The great swath of things I didn’t know about academia, about the future, is so vast that any goal beyond that, for me, would have been inarticulable.
That doesn’t keep people from asking “what’s next.” I usually answer with a generic shrug, a vague hand gesture, and something that sounds like, “Mike has to call me ‘Doctor’.” The point was always the hoodie.
A conversation three days ago has me reconsidering that answer – both in its honesty and its apathy.
There is a new bookstore in my town, Frog Moon Bookshop. During my first visit, I had the opportunity to meet the owners. We talked about all sorts of things, one being my work in Knoxville.
Him: “What will you do after?”
Me: *generic shrug, a vague hand gesture, and something that sounds like, “Mike has to call me ‘Doctor’.” The point was always the hoodie.*
Him: “Really? It just seems like there should be something. All that knowledge, learning, investment. It almost seems like there has to be something.”
I readily agreed. I never meant to suggest otherwise. But I did suggest otherwise. I exactly suggested otherwise.
I began to think about it in earnest. Mike and I passed a college while running errands yesterday. We started talking about what comes next, what I preferred, what I didn’t. But then it was clear to me: whatever it is supposed to be, will absolutely be, and I will not be able to mistake it.
Me: I am just trusting that whatever it is going to be, will be. It will work itself out the way it is supposed to.
Mike: It all has so far.
And that’s the good stuff right there. “It all has so far.” That growth spurt, the Fiat for 2025, the cultivation of trust, the understanding of “give us this day our daily bread,” all of it. Either I trust God to be who he says he is, or I don’t. And I do.
Mary did too. That’s evident in her Fiat. And it remains evident, roughly 33 years later, during a wedding at Cana.
Water Into Wine
The turning of water into wine is a well-known story. It is commonly regarded as Jesus’ first miracle, the moment that his ministry began. Anecdotally, I think it causes the most conversation in Christian circles over whether or not alcohol consumption is inherently sinful. Admittedly, this is where the majority of my thoughts resided for much of the time I have been aware of the story.
Recently, I found the relationship between Jesus and his mother more interesting than whether a glass of Chianti or a well-made Old Fashioned is a gateway to hell. In this story, we find Jesus living the commandment to honor his mother. She had a need, she brought it to her son. He would provide for her.
Now, with a new understanding of Fiat and a deeper level of trust, there is something else there when I consider how the events actually unfold. Because the story is so familiar, it is easy to conflate all the events together: there is no wine, Mary comes to Jesus, so he makes more wine.
But this is not quite what happens.
“On the third day, there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
John 2:1-5
Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.
When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her, “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Mary doesn’t tell Jesus how to handle it. She does not say, “make more wine.” She does not make any actual request, she does not petition her son for anything. She simply names the hurt. She has no idea how he will handle the need, only that he will. Then she turns to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you.” When we stop the story there, if we didn’t know it, we have no idea what is coming next – neither did Mary. She didn’t know that he would turn the water into wine so good that the head guy would make a special note of it. It isn’t even clear whether or not she hung around to see what happened next. She just knew that he would provide the right thing at the right time.
“Do whatever he tells you.”
This seems to me to be a natural next step in my particular journey. There is no way that I know of to do this except through daily reliance on a foundation of trust. The Fiat of 2025 was a resignation to expansive change in the way I move, and an embracing of the growth spurt that created that trust.
In 2026, it is time to rest in that trust, put one foot in front of the other, and “do whatever he tells you.” Technically, you could argue that it is more than one word. I am not a purist in this regard, but I can appreciate the sentiment of those who are. I can function there too, and distill it down to “whatever.” In fact, now that I look at it that way, I can feel the branches of possibility, new ways of considering, blossoming out.
Welcome, 2026. Whatever.
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