S E41: Episode 41 | ADHD-Friendly Advent Day 18

It is day 18 of our ADHD friendly advent study.

If you are finding me for the first time, no, you are not behind.

The study is specifically designed to be low effort and high impact so you can enjoy the season, have a restful worshipful advent and work with the brain God gave you, not against it.

If you are seeing my face for the first time.

My name is Rachel.

I'm an ADHD and a Jesus follower and I help women with chaotic brains seek, find and live the abundant life Jesus offers us.

Our song for this week is A Little Town of Bethlehem.

So before we get started, I want to encourage you to pause this video and go listen to the song.

I really like the Vineyard music version, Shane, and Shane also has a really great version.

But go listen to the song while looking at the lyrics and then come back to me right here.

All right, so I'm going to read you today's scripture section and then walk you through today's journaling prompt.

And then I will turn you loose to enjoy your day.

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.

And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.

And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them.

And.

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

This might seem kind of silly or, like, incredibly obvious, but as I was reading this today, I was wondering.

I'm like, okay, he's called Jesus.

We know that the angel had told Joseph that his name would be Jesus.

I wonder, was this a new name?

Like, with the new Savior comes a new name that hadn't.

Hadn't been heard before.

Were their babies named this name before Jesus?

We.

Because obviously now we know Jesus is a big name.

It's not uncommon for kids to be named after Jesus, even like names like Christian.

Whatever the case may be, those names kind of point back to Jesus.

But before Jesus, were there other kids named Jesus?

Which of Course, Jesus is the Anglicized version, Yeshua.

I'm not sure how to pronounce the original.

I think it's Aramaic name.

But when I looked it up, it was like, okay, yes.

As you might be able to tell with how Yeshua is pronounced, it is a form of Joshua, which is, you know, the.

The leader of Israel after Moses.

And so, of course, duh, when I looked that up, I was like, well, that was a really silly question for me to have as someone who spent most of my school career in Christian school.

But I also like to think that there are no silly questions.

And even when we kind of can intuit the answer to something, it's nice to have it confirmed.

Um, but yeah, so if you have ever wondered, were other babies named Jesus?

What the Hebrew equivalent of what we say as Jesus.

Yes, yes, they were.

It was a pretty common name.

Uh, so that is a really interesting thing to me.

And I kind of fell down a little bit of a rabbit hol.

Jesus is the new Joshua.

And the very bloody way that Joshua had to go about things is in direct contrast to Jesus now saying, we're not doing that anymore.

In fact, that is completely outlawed.

Here's how we're going to operate.

And so it's.

It's really interesting.

I would encourage you, if you're interested in kind of digging into scripture and like, wrestling with, like, okay, why is this this way?

But this is another way.

That is an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

I get really nerdy about this stuff.

If you are a nerdy Bible person like me, I would encourage you to listen to the Bible Project podcast.

It's very fantastic and they get real nerdy.

I very much enjoy it.

Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to today's scripture journaling prompt.

All of this is in the workbook.

The workbook is free.

That is over at the link in my profile.

Again, I am doing this entire thing for free.

So if you'd like to buy me a coffee to say thank you, you can do that at the link in my profile as well.

So the prompt for today in the workbook.

This is what the workbook looks like.

It's very nice and simple.

Has the suggested schedule, the lyrics to the video, and all of the journaling prompts.

So let me get back to my prompts.

Here we are on scripture journaling prompt four.

And you can do this either.

I would encourage you to grab your actual physical journal for this.

That is going to be the way you're going to get the most out of it.

But whatever is going to be accessible to you today, whatever you've got the spoons for, that is totally fine.

You can type out an answer on your computer or in a text to yourself, which is a great ADHD hack, by the way.

You record a voice memo to yourself or to a friend, or if all of that just feels inaccessible, just sitting and thinking through the prompt is also totally valid, and you will glean some of the benefits from that as well.

So whatever feels accessible for you today, I want you to find a level that's going to be that sweet spot of effort and payoff, because sometimes more effort doesn't equal better payoff, especially when our brains are neurodivergent.

So that being said, whatever journaling looks like for you today, I'm going to read the prompt and then give my little spiel to set you free to go and complete the prompt.

And you can can rewind the video, of course, as many times as you need in order to read that prompt.

Or you can just download the workbook.

They are all in there.

So scripture journaling prompt number four is what has God done that you've stored up, pondered and treasured in your heart?

Like mary in verse 19, if you had to identify one defining action God has taken in your life, what would it be?

So you can pause here if you want to go and journal, or you can stick around through the end of the video and I will turn you loose.

But I wanted to just very briefly share my answer for this.

So a couple years ago, when My son was 4 months old, and I've shared the story a lot, so if you've heard this, forgive me, but I became a single mom quite literally overnight.

When my son was four months old, I had married my high school sweetheart.

We'd had our first baby, we were talking about another baby.

And then before I knew it, I was being served divorce papers and I had no idea what my life was going to look like.

And that was an incredibly dark season of life.

I had no idea what to do.

I had no idea how I was going to support myself.

I was still very much learning how to be a new mom.

It was absolute chaos.

And the legal battles that followed almost, I. I almost didn't come out of it, if you catch my meaning.

But through the grace of God, he brought me through it.

And now I am remarried to an incredible man of God who is my absolute best friend in the entire world.

He has shown me so much about the love of Christ, like at being loved, the way that I Am in my marriage now has shown me so much about how Christ loves us and the fact that the sun came out as I'm saying that, like that's really cool.

But anyways, and things with my co parent now are just wonderful.

My son now has not two parents who love him, not even three parents who love him.

He has four parents who adore him.

We all, they came over to our house last night and we decorated Christmas cookies and made pizza and we had just a really great time.

And the fact that God has taken what the Enemy intended to be a broken family and created two thriving families from it, I'm speechless.

And I get to be loved in such a wonderful way by my husband.

And I've gotten to watch my ex husband become a wonderful father to not just our son, but his other children and become a wonderful husband to his wife.

And so God has taken this situation that the enemy so wanted.

He thought he had won when our family was broken.

But it has turned into the most beautiful situation.

And there's now two families who love and serve him.

And my little boy has two homes and it is difficult for him.

He hates going back and forth.

But the fact that my little boy now has two homes where the name of Jesus is glorified and he is loved and he gets to see what healthy love looks like.

I could cry talking about it.

And so this is something even, even just recently, some stuff has happened in this past week.

And even just the fact that, you know, my co parents came over last night for dinner and we had a great time and my little guy was so excited the whole day.

He's like, I don't have to miss anyone.

And it just, that's something that I think about a lot because it is, it is just such a beautiful picture of not just God turning something that the enemy meant for evil into good, but the redemption that has happened.

Even the mending of the relationship between my ex husband and myself and the healing we've been able to find between us and just pour ourselves into our new families.

And it really, it's just a beautiful story.

So I wanted to share a bit about that as that's something that's fresh on my heart.

And I'm doing all of these prompts right along with you in real time.

So excuse me.

Thank you for joining me today.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Any questions you have, whatever the case may be down in the comments.

All of these videos are uploaded as podcast episodes.

My podcast is the True Grit podcast with Rachel Grit that is over in the link in my profile as well as the workbook as well as if you would like to buy me a coffee that is over there.

All of the things are at the link in my profile.

So thank you for joining me today.

Make sure to share this video with a friend, follow for more and I will see you in tomorrow's video.

Bye.