Category: New Term

Summer has a way of loosening things that used to be routine. The alarm that used to go off at 6:30 stopped mattering. The Bible on the nightstand got a little more decorative than functional. Not out of intentional rebellion.

A new term is a strange gift in this way: it forces structure back into the day whether you’re ready or not. Lessons start at a set time. Lectures don’t wait. And that same forced structure is an open door to rebuild something that slipped, not by trying to instantly recover the rhythm you had before, but by starting smaller than pride wants to admit.

The prophet Haggai spoke to a people who had let something sacred sit unfinished for years, not through one dramatic decision, but through a slow accumulation of “later.” His instruction wasn’t a guilt trip; it was simple: “Give careful thought to your ways” (Haggai 1:5), and then, begin again. Not perfectly. Just actually.

If your own rhythm, things like prayer, reading, quiet moments with God, went quiet over summer, the start of this term isn’t a deadline to feel bad about. It’s a natural seam in the year, already built for a fresh start. Five minutes before the new timetable takes over is still five minutes. Rhythms are rebuilt one repeated day at a time, not recovered all at once.

Nobody prepares parents for how much of raising a child is learning, again and again, to let go a little more. First the school gate. Then the sleepover, the school trip, the first bus ride alone. Now, for many this September, a secondary school with more independence, or a university start hundreds of miles from home.

There’s a particular kind of grief in this that doesn’t get talked about enough, because it’s tangled up with pride and excitement too. You want them to grow, to become capable, to go further than you did. And still, there’s an ache in watching a version of them, the one who needed you for everything, quietly become someone who doesn’t.

Hannah’s prayer over Samuel is a strange comfort here. She asked God for a child, and when he came, she gave him back, not because she stopped loving him, but because she trusted the One who was keeping him more than she trusted her own grip (1 Samuel 1:27 to 28). Letting go, in that story, isn’t the opposite of love. It’s what love does when it trusts God with what it can no longer control.

If this month has you standing at a school gate, a train platform, or an empty bedroom that used to be full, you’re allowed to feel both things at once: proud, and undone. God isn’t asking you to feel less. He’s just asking you to hand over the grip.

It doesn’t take long. New classroom, new corridor, new group of people, and almost immediately, some quiet part of the brain starts measuring. Who seems to already have friends. Who seems more confident, more prepared, more sorted. Comparison doesn’t wait for a reason to show up; it often arrives before the first lesson does.

This isn’t unique to school gates or lecture halls; it’s just especially loud there, because everything is unfamiliar and everyone is trying to work out where they fit. But comparison was never a reliable way to work out your worth, in September or any other month.

“Each one should test their own actions… then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else” (Galatians 6:4). Notice it doesn’t say stop noticing other people; it says stop using them as the measuring stick.

There’s a difference between being inspired by someone and being defined against them. One pushes you forward. The other quietly convinces you that you’re behind before you’ve even started.

If this term is putting you in new rooms with new people, it might help to remember nobody around you has finished becoming who they are, no matter how sorted they seem on day one. You’re not behind. You’re just at your own starting point, not theirs.

There’s a strange feeling of being in between in the days right before something new officially starts. The uniform is ironed. The student ID hasn’t been used yet. You know the date things begin, but you don’t yet know how it will actually feel to be there. It’s a kind of waiting room: not quite the old season, not yet the new one.

Waiting rooms are uncomfortable because they ask something of us that we’re not naturally good at: stillness without certainty. We want to skip ahead to the part where we already know how this year goes, who our friends will be, whether we’ll cope. But that part isn’t available yet. Only the waiting is.

The Bible is full of people who spent real time in this kind of waiting. Israel waited at the edge of the Jordan before crossing into a land they’d never lived in (Joshua 3). The disciples waited in Jerusalem, told to stay put, before anything about their future had been explained to them (Acts 1:4). Waiting, in Scripture, is rarely wasted. It’s often exactly where trust is built, not because the person waiting suddenly feels calm, but because they choose to stay faithful before the answer comes.

So, if you’re in that stretch of days before a new term, new school, or new stage properly begins, and the waiting feels bigger than it should, that’s not a sign something’s wrong. It might just be the room you’re meant to be sitting in for now. It won’t last. But it isn’t nothing, either.

September is known for being a month filled with change: the end of summer, a change in weather, the end of Q3, new timetables, and most importantly, education. New folders, still creased from the packet. New faces in a classroom, a lecture hall, an office. Whether it’s the start of GCSE years, the first week of secondary school or sixth form, or the nervous excitement of arriving at university, there’s one thing almost everyone starting something new is quietly asking: will I be okay in this?

It’s worth saying plainly: change is not the enemy of faith. It can feel like it, because change unsettles the things we’ve learned to lean on: familiar routines, familiar people, the version of ourselves that already knows how to cope. But Scripture doesn’t promise a life without change. It promises a God who doesn’t change with it.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) isn’t just a comforting line for a hard week; it’s a foundation for every new one. The timetable will change. The people around you will change, more than once. But the anchor doesn’t move just because the water does.

If you’re heading into something new this month, a new school, a new course, a new stage of study, you don’t need to have it figured out by week one. You need somewhere steady to put your weight while you find your feet. That’s what an anchor is for. It doesn’t stop the boat from being on open water; it just means the boat isn’t at the mercy of the current.

Whatever this term holds, you’re not walking into it alone, and you’re not walking into it unanchored.