As we close up another year, I love looking back and reflecting. Every year has its share of highs and lows, moments we celebrated with elation and crushing situations that rocked us to our core.

For me, 2025 was no different. My mountain-top moments were buffered with tears and brokenness, but I’m learning that this makes an abundant life with God worthwhile.

He is the same whether we’re rejoicing from the peak or crying in the valley.

In every season, He is there, crowning us with goodness and delivering His divine favor even in the middle of scarcity and loss, confusion and misunderstanding. We may not be able to see it, but His generosity is overflowing, and He leaves us seeds of fruitfulness.

How, you may ask? How is God’s goodness abundant in my terrible trial or as I grope through grief?

God’s character is evident throughout scripture, proving that He is good, glorious, and extravagant to us.

In Psalm 65 we read, “You enrich the land abundantly, the streams of God are filled with water, the grasslands of the desert overflow. You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance.” (Psalm 65: 9, 11, 12)

In times of need may we never doubt the plenitude of our Provider. We may experience oppression but may we not miss the opulence of His grace. He deals bountifully with us in our brokenness.

As Job found, following God closely doesn’t mean we are exempt from suffering. On the contrary, our times of distress take us to a deeper understanding and a greater knowledge of our Father.

“He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal.” Job 5:18

I’m struck by the question God asks Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Or shut the sea in with doors? Job 38: 4,8

Oh yes. You are God and I am not.

Because He set in place the boundaries of the sea and placed the sun and moon in the sky, He also has His hand in every moment, of every day, in every year of my life.

Even the years that are flat-out hard or painful have been filtered through His fingertips.

He has determined each moment in our lives and through it all…He crowns the year with goodness.