December has a way of putting everything on trial.
The goals you set in January. The habits you swore would stick this time. The healing you thought would be further along by now. As the calendar winds down, it’s easy to look back and see only the gaps—the unfinished, the undone, the “not yet.”
You tried to be faithful. You tried to stay hopeful. But somewhere along the way, grief, disappointment, disruption, or plain old exhaustion wrote themselves into your story.
Maybe you buried someone you love.
Maybe a relationship shifted in a way you never saw coming.
Maybe doors you thought God was opening slammed shut.
Or maybe you simply look back and think, “I should be further along than this.”
I know this ache personally. After my husband Reggie died, I spent years trying to rebuild routines that kept crumbling, setting goals I couldn’t sustain, and wondering why progress felt so impossibly slow. I kept waiting for the breakthrough moment—the one that would finally prove I was okay, that I had healed, that I had “made it.”
But God wasn’t interested in my timeline. He was interested in my transformation.
This year, He taught me something that changed how I see unfinished seasons: every moment is carried by the one before it. My morning victory was decided by my evening wind-down. My afternoon clarity depended on my morning hydration. My yearly progress was built—or broken—by choices so small I almost dismissed them.
Maybe that’s true for you, too.
Maybe this year wasn’t a failure. Maybe you simply didn’t have the structure, the support, the rest, or the clarity you needed. You were trying to perform without the scaffolding performance requires.
That’s not failure. That’s information—and information can become invitation.
This guided prayer is for the year that didn’t go as planned. It’s for the woman who loves God, who’s tried to walk by faith, and yet feels like she’s standing in the gap between what she hoped for and what actually happened.
If that’s you, take a deep breath. You don’t have to pretend this year was easy. You don’t have to spin it into a tidy victory story. You just have to bring the real you to a real God—and let Him meet you here.
Step 1: Name the Year Honestly
Before we pray, pause and name what this year has actually been.
- What surprised you—in joyful and painful ways?
- What did you hope would happen that didn’t?
- Where did you feel God’s nearness? Where did you feel His distance?
- When did you hear God’s voice? Where did you hear silence?
You might even finish this sentence in your journal:
“If I had to describe this year in one phrase, it would be: __________.”
You don’t have to clean this up. True Christian prayer doesn’t start with performance; it starts with truth. God already knows the unfiltered version. He’s inviting you to share it with Him.
Step 2: A Guided Prayer for a Year That Didn’t Go as Planned
You can pray this out loud, whisper it under your breath, or read it slowly and let certain lines become your own.
“Lord, I come to You at the end of a year that didn’t go as I planned.
I had hopes. I had goals. I had visions of who I would be by now—and I’m not there. Part of me wants to catalog every failure, every false start, every moment I fell short. Part of me is already anxious about next year, wondering if it will feel exactly the same.
Lord, I come to You at the end of a year that didn’t go as I planned.
I had hopes, goals, and a picture of who I’d be by now—and I’m not there. Part of me wants to catalog every failure and false start; another part is already anxious about next year, afraid it will feel the same.
Today, instead of bringing You a polished report, I bring You my honesty.
But today, I bring You something different than my disappointment. I bring You my honesty.
Father, I’m ending this year with mixed emotions.
Some things I’m grateful for. Some things I’m still grieving.
There are answers I can see and questions that still feel raw.
I confess that part of me is disappointed—maybe even angry.
I thought certain doors would open. I thought certain relationships would stay.
I thought I’d be further along in healing, in finances, in purpose, in rebuilding my life.
Instead, I’m looking at a year that doesn’t match the picture I had in mind.
I confess that I’ve measured this year by outcomes instead of obedience. I’ve counted what I produced instead of who I became. I’ve demanded dramatic transformation while ignoring the quiet faithfulness You were building in me all along.
Now, I surrender my version of how this year “should” have gone.
I lay down the timelines, the comparisons, the silent scorecards I’ve kept on myself.
I confess that sometimes I trusted my plans more than Your presence.
Forgive me for the moments I dismissed as insignificant—the evenings I numbed instead of rested, the mornings I rushed instead of received, the small choices I thought didn’t matter. I see now that You were inviting me into a chain of moments, and I kept breaking the chain while wondering why the breakthrough never came.
Thank You for what did happen this year—even the parts I wouldn’t have chosen. Thank You for the lessons hidden in the losses, the strength forged in the struggle, the clarity that only comes through confusion. Thank You for not giving up on me when I gave up on myself.
You are still the God who hovers over the dark,
who speaks into chaos, who brings form to what feels empty.
Even when I can’t trace Your hand, I choose to trust Your heart.
Show me where You were at work, even when I couldn’t see it.
Open my eyes to the chain of moments You wove through this year:
the small protections I didn’t notice,
the strength You gave me to get out of bed on days I wanted to hide,
the people You sent to hold me together when I felt like I was falling apart.
Remind me of the prayers You did answer—
the ones I’ve already forgotten or minimized
because they didn’t seem “big enough” to count.
Highlight the seeds You helped me plant:
the boundaries I set,
the habits I started,
the counseling session I finally booked,
the one honest conversation that changed the tone of a relationship.
Help me see that spiritual resilience isn’t built in grand, dramatic moments alone.
It’s built in the unseen, ordinary decisions to keep walking with You
when nothing looks impressive on the outside.
Hold the parts of this year that still hurt—the grief I don’t know what to do with,
the hopes I quietly buried,
the moments I wondered if You were still writing my story
or if I somehow disqualified myself from the life I longed for.
God, there are parts of this year that still sting.
Losses I’m not over yet.
Questions I can’t answer.
Waiting that feels endless.
I bring these to You—not to be rushed through or waved away,
but to be held and healed.
Where my faith has worn thin, renew it.
Where my hope has grown quiet, breathe on it again.
Where shame or self-blame have settled in, remind me that
You do not measure me by my productivity, my performance,
or how quickly I “bounce back.”
Help me release this year into Your hands—and receive tomorrow with open hands.
Lord, I release this year to You:
the good I celebrated,
the hard I survived,
the things I still don’t understand.
Where I’m clinging to “what should have been,”
help me loosen my grip.
Where I’m replaying the same scenes in my mind,
speak a better word.
Write Your grace over my regrets.
Write Your mercy over my mistakes.
Write Your sovereignty over the unexpected detours.
As I step into a new year,
I don’t want to drag the old scripts with me—
scripts that say I’m behind, broken, or beyond repair.
Instead, I ask You to teach me how to build tomorrow with You:
one prayer, one step, one act of obedience at a time.
Teach me to see this December not as a verdict, but as an invitation. Show me that I’m not behind—I’m simply at the start of a new chain of dominoes. I can’t fix the last eleven months, but I can prepare well for the next eleven minutes.
Help me release the pressure to arrive and embrace the permission to continue. You are the God of process, not just product. You celebrate direction more than speed, obedience more than outcome. May I learn to celebrate the same.
Prepare me for the year ahead—not with more willpower, but with better systems. Not with harder striving, but with holier rhythms. Show me the evening routine that sets up my morning. Show me the small choice that carries the big breakthrough. Show me the scaffolding I’ve been missing.
Remind me that every moment is pregnant with the next one’s possibility. When I’m tempted to believe my small steps don’t matter, whisper that You often do Your greatest work in the dark, long before I see daylight.
I surrender my timeline to Your divine sequence. I release my demand for a dramatic ending and receive Your invitation to a faithful beginning. This year may not have been what I planned—but it was never wasted. Not in Your economy. Not in Your hands.
Give me courage to prepare again,
even after disappointment.
Give me faith to plant new seeds,
even when last season’s field looks barren.
Give me gratitude in hard times,
not as a performance,
but as a quiet declaration that You are still good
and You are still at work.
I place this year in Your hands,
and I place my future there too.
In Jesus’ wonder-working name, I pray and give thanks, Amen.
Step 3: One Small Practice to Carry Forward
Guided prayers like this are not a one-time fix; they’re a way of life. If this resonated with you, here’s one simple practice to carry into the coming days:
Choose one line from the prayer that felt the most true—and make it your daily prayer for the next week.
Write it on a sticky note, put it in your journal, or set it as a reminder on your phone. Each time you see it, pause and pray it again. Let that one line become a bridge between this year and the next—a way of building tomorrow with God, even while some questions remain unanswered.
Your year may not have gone as planned. But your story is not over, and you are not walking into the next chapter alone.
What Comes Next
If this prayer resonated with something in your spirit, I want to offer you a next step.
My debut book, When Your World Ends: God’s Creative Process for Rebuilding a Life, walks through the seven stages of how God brings us from chaos to creation—the same process He used in Genesis, and the same process He uses in our lives today. It’s for anyone who’s experienced loss, transition, or disappointment and wonders how to begin again.
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