S E42: Episode 42 | ADHD-Friendly Advent Day 19

It's day 19 of our ADHD Friendly Advent study and if you are just joining us, no you are not behind.

The study is specifically designed to be low effort and high impact for ADHD brains because it's a better idea to work with the brain God gave you instead of against it.

So I am going to be reading through our scripture for today, reading out your journaling prompt for the day and then sending you on your way.

And real quick, these videos are uploaded.

Sorry, my chair is being really squeaky.

These videos are uploaded as podcast episodes on my podcast, the True Grit Podcast with Rachel Grit.

You can find a link to that over in my profile.

There is also a free workbook that I have created that you can download at the link in my profile as well.

Everything is laid out there very nicely for you and if you are seeing my face for the first time, my name is Rachel.

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

Now before we get going, we're going to I have a little announcement.

I am very excited to announce that I am actually going to be putting this on.

This event is going to be designed specifically for ADHD years.

We're going to be praying through the new year, doing some listening prayer to kind of like let the Holy Spirit guide us as to what the new year is going to bring.

And then we are also going to do some actual planning.

Planning.

So I would love for you to join me.

It will be on a pay what you can basis.

If you can only pay $1, that is fine.

I want to have you.

If you can pay more than that, you can, you know, choose whatever price you feel is going to capture the worth of what we're doing.

So more information will be coming on that very, very soon.

But there is a link to let me know that you're interested over in my profile.

So definitely go do that if that's something that you'd be up for.

Or you can leave a comment and I will DM you more details when that happens.

Okay?

So with that out of the way, I'm very excited.

If you can't tell with that out of the way, let's go ahead and read today's scripture passage.

But before we do that, really quick, this week's song.

We have a song for Each week of Advent.

This week's song is A Little Town of Bethlehem.

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

So I'd like to invite you to pause the video here, go listen to the song A Little Town of Bethlehem, and come back here.

Make sure that you have the lyrics pulled up.

I really like the Apple music app, so I can turn it so that the lyrics, like, go.

I'm pretty sure most music apps have a feature like that, but I would encourage you to just sit, soak the music in and read the lyrics so that you can get the full picture of the song.

So go pause this video, do that, and then come back here.

All right, now we're going to get into today's scripture passage.

All of this, all of the scripture passages.

There's like a little suggested schedule if your brain does better with structure.

All of this is in the workbook and it is free to download.

So go head over to the link in my profile and you can download that.

It updates every week for the new week with that week's information, and it's all free.

If you would like to buy me a coffee, though, to say thank you, you can do that at the link in my profile as well.

Okay, so today, day 19, is Luke 2.

2232.

I am reading out of the ESV.

And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

And as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord.

A pair of turtle doves.

Not.

Probably not In a pear tree.

Oh, it's a partridge in a pear tree, isn't it?

Or two young pigeons.

Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

And this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.

And the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came in the Spirit into the temple.

And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.

For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to Your people, Israel.

Now, a couple things struck me as I was reading this, and not just the part about the turtle doves, though the song does start playing in my head when I read the word turtledoves.

I love here how it shows that Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen Jesus.

This is such a solid piece of scriptural proof about the fact that God does speak to us.

And when we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is guiding us and giving us information.

Listening prayer is a huge part of my personal faith journey.

It's something I've been doing for years, and it's how I ended up with my husband, which is a whole crazy fun story.

And I did not believe listening prayer was a thing.

I didn't even know it was a thing for most of my life.

And I grew up in the church, went to Christian school most of my life.

Like, I truly grew up with the traditional American Christian evangelical upbringing.

And when I learned about listening prayer, my very first thought was, oh, cool, this is a cult.

But over time, as I have learned to engage in listening prayer, as I have learned to listen for the Lord's voice, it has become an absolutely invaluable tool, not just for, you know, processing what I'm reading and what I'm studying and learning as a believer, but for discerning God's will for my life.

We know that we are to follow God's will.

We know that we are to listen for his leading.

But the actual how, like, how do we actually do that?

Had never been taught to me until I was in my mid-20s.

And so I love seeing proof like this that the Holy Spirit does communicate with us and that God communicates with us and that we can glean and gather information and guidance from the Holy Spirit.

And I'm all about very practical action steps.

I think there's a lot of, like, honestly, kind of like, woo, woo, that is accepted in the church where we're like, oh, you gotta, you gotta listen to the Spirit, but no one tells you how.

You gotta trust in God, but no one tells you how.

There's so much of Christianity that kind of honestly.

Well, I should say the American practice of Christianity that kind of falls apart when you start asking questions like how.

It's like, okay, this is going to be really silly, but you remember that scene from Schitt's Creek where David and Moira are making that recipe, and David's like, Moira's reading the recipe as David's mixing, and she's like, okay, now you fold in the cheese.

And David's like, how do I do that?

And Moira goes, well, you just.

You fold it in.

And David's like, what do I, like, fold it like a piece of paper?

Like, how do I fold in the cheese?

And she's like, well, I can't tell you everything, David.

And he's like, well, can you tell me something?

Like, that is what I feel like.

So much of this is like, we're told that we need to trust God.

We're told we need to listen to God, but we're not actually told how.

And so that's something I'm very focused on here, is sharing the actual Ranger.

No, thank you.

Sharing the actual how of faith, especially from a neurodivergent standpoint.

And listening prayer is a huge part of the how of faith.

So if it's new to you or you've kind of dabbled in it, but you're not really sure.

Am I hearing myself?

Am I hearing God's voice?

What is going on?

You are so in the right place.

And I am very, very glad that you're here.

And I also love the mercy of God that God had promised to this one individual.

Hey, I've got something really special for you.

You are gonna see my son in his physical human form.

It's just.

It's beautiful.

And I love that.

I love that.

So that is today's scripture passage.

Now we're going to move on into the journaling prompt for the day.

Now, I would like to encourage you to actually break out a physical journal for this part, whether that's a sheet of paper or an actual journal.

But if that doesn't feel accessible or you don't have the spoons for that today, that is fine.

We've got some other options as well that correspond to whatever your energy level may be, even if that level is zero.

I got you.

So if it's not accessible today to actually write something out, I want you to pull out your phone, use your notes app, send a text to a friend, type it out for me.

Typing is a lot easier on a laptop.

So if typing on a phone feels like a lot, you can do voice to text.

You can type on a laptop, if that's a lot.

Voice memo is a great option, whether in your voice notes, which can be helpful because a lot of apps will then transcribe what the note is and you can read through it if that's helpful to you.

I personally like to go back through my church notes, my personal study notes.

To kind of glean revelations and, you know, kind of review the things that God has been teaching me.

But also, if all of that feels like way too much, you can also just sit and think through the question on your own.

That is a totally valid way to do this.

And you will still glean something from this exercise.

Okay, so now let's get into the actual scripture journaling prompt.

So we are on scriptural scripture journaling prompt number five.

Are you waiting on a promise right now from God?

If yes, share about that experience.

If not, share a time you've been waiting on God in the past.

So I'm going to have you pause here, go do your journaling in whatever form is going to be accessible for you today, and then come back here and I will share some of the things that I gleaned from this this morning.

Well, this afternoon.

Okay, did you actually go do it?

If not, here is your second chance to pause, go complete the prompt and then come back here.

If you did already finish this though, let's go ahead and talk about it.

I have shared quite a lot.

I. I tend to be a pretty open person, especially on this platform, but I've shared a lot about the dark season that I have been in for quite a while now.

It's been about four and a half years for me, about three, three and a half years for my husband.

We were both in our own separate dark seasons before we met.

And while there's been so much good, there's also been a lot of struggle.

He has been searching for a new job for months now.

He was, I fully believe, and this is my personal opinion, that he was very unfairly let go from his job that he had been at for almost 10 years.

And it's been a struggle.

God has been really faithful in providing, but it also has just been a prolonging of what has already been a very long, drawn out season uncertainty.

He dealt with cancer.

He was in the process of dealing with brain cancer when he and I met.

And then about a month or two into marriage, a completely unrelated second form of cancer was found.

And between that and we have three children on two different custody schedules, that has been challenging in its own way.

We've been dealing with, you know, blending our families and severe health challenges and interpersonal struggles.

And through all of it, God has been so faithful.

Like, I genuinely did not believe that marriages like mine could exist.

I did not believe it was possible to have a partner, a true partner who loved Jesus more than he was ever going to love me, but loved me more than he was ever going to love himself.

And it's an incredibly beautiful place to be.

But we have still been in this season of waiting and hoping and wondering for a very long time now, and we're very weary.

And so I very much feel like Simeon in, you know, the.

The first part of this where he has not seen Mary and Joseph walk into the temple yet with little baby Jesus and just imagining how he must have felt when he realized what was happening, while I'm like, unexpectedly getting choked up.

Just like, he knew this was coming.

He knew this day was coming and that God would be faithful.

But I wonder if he ever started to kind of wonder.

I wonder if he ever sat there and was like, okay, you know what?

Maybe I misheard.

Maybe I didn't get something right.

Because time keeps passing and nothing is changing.

And that's very much.

That's very much how the season has felt for us.

And so this is really encouraging to read.

Just thinking about that moment.

And I've had several moments like that of realizing that God is moving in a beautiful way, like when I met my husband, and then when we started to realize maybe this is the path forward that God has for us.

And then when we got married and the joy that came with that, and how God has shown up and provided in so many ways for us.

I've had that moment of going, wow, God, you're working here.

I've seen that so many times in my life.

And so I can draw not just from experiences in scripture like Simeon's.

I can draw not just from experiences like friends and family of mine have of their own, experiences of God showing up and changing things and answering promises.

I have my own experiences to draw from as well.

But it is a challenge.

It is very much a challenge when you realize that that season is still ongoing.

The answer is still not yet, or wait, and things haven't changed yet.

And so if you can relate to that, you are very much not alone.

You are absolutely in the right place.

And I would really love to hear about your experience.

I am waiting on God to do something amazing, and I know he's going to.

And in my quiet time, I have very much sensed him prompting me to be loud about my hope and loud about the season that we're in, so that when he answers, it will just be all the more beautiful and that he will just receive all of the glory.

So I would love to hear your experiences if you are in a similar place or if you have something that you can relate to in the past that you would like to share.

I very much believe that we are built for community and that sharing and being vulnerable with one another is essential to building the kind of community that we see in Acts 2.

God created us for beautiful connections.

He created us so that our relationships would reflect him to each other and that he would be glorified through all of it.

And so that is what I have created this place for.

And I'm really glad that you are here.

So if you have made it this far, you are a trooper and I appreciate you.

I would love to stay connected.

So make sure you follow.

If you can repost this video, that helps it reach more people, which is really helpful, not just for me, but also to get encouragement out there so that it reaches the right people at the right time.

I love hearing messages from people.

I get some DMs, sometimes some comments of people being like this is exactly what I needed to hear.

Like, oh my goodness, I can relate so much.

And I love hearing that because that means that God is using me to encourage others.

So if you can hit reshare on this video or share this with a friend, whether that's in DMS or text or whatever the case may be, that would be incredibly helpful.

Also, make sure you go subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of these videos.

There is a playlist on the podcast of all of these advent videos.

So if you want to get caught up, you are totally welcome to do that.

But nobody is ever behind here.

Uh, we are very, very focused on doing what we can now to maximize results with the lowest amount of effort.

Because we are not called to put in effort.

We are called to experience abundant life.

And there is a way to do that that doesn't involve rejecting and working against the brain that God gave us.

So I would love for you to go subscribe to the podcast, leave a comment below or head over to the link in my profile.

I will have more details about that very soon.

Go download the workbook.

It is free.

I would love for you to have it.

You can print it, you can fill it out digitally.

It's really designed to be as simple as and un overwhelming as possible while being very impactful.

Because that is especially for neurodivergent brains.

Low impact or low effort with high impact is the sweet spot.

That is what we're going for.

So with that all being said, I hope to see you in tomorrow's video.

Bye.