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Finding Margin: A Review and Reflection of 2025

Finding Margin: A Review and Reflection of 2025

Last updated on: December 27, 2025 at 11:11 pm by Jeff McLain

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Finding Margin: A Review and Reflection of 2025 2025-12-27T23:11:53-05:00 Jeff McLain

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Finding Margin: A Review and Reflection of 2025.

Christmas has a way of inviting reflection. It always has for me. But this year, that reflection feels heavier—and more honest.

Initially, our family planned to spend Christmas in Southern California with Katie’s family. Living across the country from family has never been easy, and this year especially reminded us how fragile plans can be. The second half of 2025 brought more than we anticipated: an emergency appendix surgery while on vacation, several complex seizures for Katie (with hospitalization), and other health concerns we are still investigating. There were broken pipes and items in our home, a $2,300 car repair, ongoing diabetes management on my end, and the slow ache of watching our dog age towards his end. By the time we added it all up, we knew the trip wasn’t possible. Family is hard at times, and sadly, they didn’t fully understand what we were walking through.

For our immediate family, it was disappointing as well. Being together would have been good. I think being somewhere warmer would have been good. And yet—we discovered staying home turned out to be good too. Perhaps even divine.

We leaned into our normative, annual, quieter traditions: enjoying the lights at local amusement parks, Koziar’s Christmas Village, our nostalgic, familiar Christmas movies, and dinner with my family. Nothing flashy. Just being present together. Though we didn’t even get all our decorations out, I realized that sometimes faithfulness looks like staying put, and that is the best thing for our family. Good things happened for us this season.

The Gift of the In-Between Days

This time of year invites us to take stock. There is a margin in our lives to take inventory. We think about what stretched us financially, where relationships felt strained, how our bodies reminded us of limits, and whether the benchmarks we hoped to hit ever arrived. I imagine you’re doing some of that reflecting, too.

In a recent email from Caesar Kalinowski, whose work shaped my early missional journey, he described the days after Christmas as a moment when “the house is quiet again.” In that quiet, he says, we’re given space to breathe, reflect, and sit with what the season meant. He calls the days between Christmas and New Year “a soft pause.” That phrase stuck with me.

This pause matters. It gives us clarity—if we protect it.

Because, as Kalinowski also names honestly, “somewhere along the way… the margin disappears. The clarity fades.” That’s been true in my life more times than I’d like to admit. If there’s one invitation worth taking seriously as we head into a new year, it’s this: build margin on purpose. Margin for rest. Margin for prayer. Margin allows us to notice what God is actually doing and how we are getting in the way.

The Gift of Margin

Margin has a way of telling the truth. In the quiet, I see where I’ve grown—and where I still have a long way to go.

I don’t write from a place of arrival.

This year I’ve grown as a dad. Monthly daddy–daughter dates have helped me slow down. I’m learning patience, choosing conversation over control more often. And still, I have so much to learn about what it means to be a good father.

I’ve grown as a pastor, too. I’m learning my limits, affirming more, paying attention to my shadow sides, and focusing less on fixing and more on being present. Even so, I know there is a long road ahead in becoming the kind of pastor I hope to be.

As a preacher and teacher, I’m learning to listen more—to let the text speak rather than forcing it to say what I want. That has been freeing. It’s also humbling. There’s still much growth ahead.

In my role as a husband, I love my wife deeply and am grateful to share daily life with her. And yet, I’m still learning how to love her more fully, more attentively, more faithfully.

I am dealing with my expectations. All those frustrations where my house, life, or family don’t look like magazines. I admittedly carry expectations about family—those picture-perfect holidays where everyone gathers for hours, fully present and emotionally available. Real life is more complicated. Distance, health struggles, lack of interest on the parts of others, and limitations on all sides mean I’m still learning how to be a good son and son-in-law in imperfect situations.

Margin doesn’t shame us. It clarifies us. It shows us where growth has taken root—and where God is still inviting us to grow.

Letting a Verse Shape a Season

For nearly four years now, I’ve been slowly unpacking 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12—“make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.” As I look ahead to 2026, that verse still feels like home. Still a summons. Still unfinished work in me.

By the way, having a verse—or a passage—that guides a season of life is a grounding practice. It becomes a framework for discernment when everything else feels noisy. I’ve written before about why this matters and how Scripture can gently shape the way we live, not just what we believe. Returning to the same verse year after year isn’t stagnation—it’s formation.

The quiet life, as I’ve come to see it, isn’t passive. It’s resistant. It’s a faithful way of being present to God and others in a world addicted to urgency, branding, and performance. For many who are disillusioned with the church but still hopeful about Jesus, it might even be a vision of renewal.

By the way, if you are frustrated and want to journey with others in a simple community of Jesus followers, please find us at River Corner Church.

The Shepherds and Quiet Faithfulness

Luke’s telling of the shepherds in Luke 2 keeps confirming this for me. These were people without social standing, invited into the holiest moment in human history. They respond with risky obedience. They’re changed. Others are amazed.

And then—almost surprisingly—they return to their fields.

They don’t become professional religious leaders. They don’t build platforms. They don’t publish manifestos. They go back to work, glorifying God where they already live, work, worship, and play. That detail matters. The kingdom advances not just through spectacular moments, but through quiet faithfulness.

This is where I believe the church often gets things backward. And this is the quiet resistance I want to be part of.

A Year of Quiet Readers and Shared Resistance

As I reflect on Lead a Quiet Life over the past year, I’m deeply grateful. Over 22,000 visits and 13,000 readers joined this conversation in 2025. That’s humbling. If even a fraction of those readers found encouragement, margin, or a gentle challenge to rethink faith in a brand-driven culture, then the work was worth it.

The top five posts this year surprised me:

Fuller Seminary: What’s Said and Left Unsaid – reflecting as an alumnus on a year of public tension.
Four Stages of Faith and Conversion – naming the seasons many of us quietly move through.
Living Clement’s Wisdom: 8 Virtues for Christian Community – ancient wisdom pressing against modern church culture.
Reading Shelf: Six Bible Translations for Meditation & Study – encouraging deeper, more faithful reading.
Finding Sacred Pause: 5 Apps That Build Spiritual Discipline – practical tools for margin and attentiveness.

Please revisit these posts.

This list, taken together, I think they tells a story: people are hungry for depth, honesty, and practices that slow us down. I hope to reflect more and to see what this means for the issues I address in the months ahead.

Stepping Into 2026 With Intention

I write from the posture of a spiritual sojourner—grounded, imperfect, and learning. Lead a Quiet Life exists to explore what it means to follow Jesus with simplicity, Scripture-shaped imagination, and downward mobility in a culture obsessed with excess.

So as the year turns, my encouragement is simple: find margin this week—and protect it this year. Use the quiet wisely. Let Scripture guide you. Resist the pressure to rush. And trust that God is at work in the ordinary places you already inhabit.

As Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol: “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

May 2026 be marked not by noise, but by faithful, quiet fruitfulness.

In closing, if the reflections from Caesar Kalinowski resonate with you, I’d encourage you to spend some time with his writing and teaching. Caesar has a steady, grounded way of naming both the beauty and the cost of living with intention, especially in seasons when life feels full, and margin is thin.

And if you’re willing, I’d love to hear from you here.

What stood out to you from the past year?
Where did you experience growth, loss, resistance, or grace?
What stops you from having more margin in your life?

Reflection doesn’t have to be polished to be faithful. Sometimes naming it out loud is the first step toward clarity.

General Christian

Home and Religion

Family, Parenting and Religion

Series: Year in Review

About Jeff McLain

Jeff McLain is a pastor, writer, and doctoral student passionate about helping others rediscover a simple, quieter faith. Jeff is a pastoral leader at River Corner Church in Lancaster, PA, and serves as Director of Pastoral Ministries at Water Street Mission. Through his Lead a Quiet Life blog, Jeff explores Scripture, spiritual formation, and community—inviting readers to slow down, live faithfully, and follow Jesus in everyday life. You can read more about the author here.

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