Episode 46 | ADHD-Friendly Advent Day 23

It's day 23 of our ADHD friendly advent study.

And if you are just finding us, know you are not behind.

The study is specifically designed to be low effort and high impact to work with the brain God gave you, not against it.

So today's homework, the homework for pretty much this entire last week of Advent, is pretty short.

We will read some scripture.

I'll encourage you to go listen to the song for this week, which is Mary did you know?

I recommend the pentatonix version.

It is my husband's favorite Christmas song and it is just such a good one.

So I would strongly encourage you to pause the video here.

Go listen to Mary did you know?

And pay attention to the lyrics.

Fair warning though, this one just hits me.

I feel a lot harder than the others.

Maybe as the mom of a little boy, I can relate to it on a different level now than I have most of my life, but it is just such a chills inducing song when you really pay attention to the lyrics.

I feel like so many of these songs we know by heart, it's kind of like a lot of scripture.

We know it by heart, but it kind of loses its oomph until you really take the time to dig in and then there's so much richness there.

So pause here, go listen to Mary did you know?

Whatever your favorite version is, and then come back here and we'll read some scripture together.

All right, Cool.

Cool.

I filmed the entire video and then TikTok said, no, you didn't and deleted it.

So we are just gonna continue on like nothing happened.

Sometimes things go wrong and that's okay.

We are not gonna let negativity win today.

Even though I was happy with how the video went, that is fine.

So we're gonna go ahead and read today's scripture.

We are in Luke 2, 33, 38.

I am reading out of the ESV.

And his father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also.

And that thought and so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Fanuel, of the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin and then as a widow until she was 84.

She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.

And coming up at that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

This I love seeing the anticipation and how it's fulfilled in multiple ways in just this passage.

So in the passage before, we see that Simeon is this man who is in the temple, and he has been waiting to meet Jesus.

God has told him, hey, you are not going to die until you meet Jesus.

So he has been just waiting and hoping, knowing that this is going to happen in his lifetime, which had to be like, I imagine, like, the first couple months after he was told, that had to pass so incredibly slowly because he's probably like, is it today?

Is it happening today?

And then as time goes on, you kind of begin to relax a little bit.

And so when it finally happened, I wonder if he knew from the moment that Mary and Joseph walked into the temple.

Like, I'm so curious what the actual logistics of this entire thing were.

But we see this fulfilled in this passage.

But we also meet Anna, and Anna, her story is particularly emotionally charged for me.

So we know that she was married for seven years, and then she lost her husband.

And she has been living as a widow from that time.

We don't know exactly when that happened, but until she was 84 years old.

Now, as the wife of a cancer patient, my husband has had two different kinds of cancer, one of which is brain cancer, and will never fully go away.

It doesn't go into remission, could come back at any time.

We really don't know what the future is going to look like.

But unfortunately, the thought of losing my husband is something that takes up mental space for me, even just on the back burner 24 7.

And so I can't yet relate to that, to losing my husband.

But it's something that I think about more than I would care to admit.

And so the idea that she had this hope for this life with her husband, and she got married, and she got to live with him for seven years, and then he dies.

And all of the hopes and dreams that she thought her life was going to hold, she probably had so many ideas for what her life was going to look like, only for that to be completely dashed.

Something like losing your spouse just can completely wreck your life.

I have gone through a divorce, and my life was completely upended.

And to this day, I laugh about how if someone had told me, like, a week before I found out I was getting divorced, what my life looks like now, I would have had, like, a massive breakdown and been like, what that's not what I wanted.

And it's just so wild to see how God takes something you never would have signed up for and makes it more beautiful than you possibly could have imagined.

And we see that here with Anna.

She probably saw herself growing old with her husband and living with her husband and spending time with her children and her grandchildren and her grandchildren's children.

And instead, here she is.

She lives in the temple.

And it's not clear whether she has children, but it doesn't really seem like it.

But then she has also been waiting for the promised Messiah.

And then he comes and she gets to meet him and she gets to have this joy of knowing that Israel's salvation is here, the salvation of the world is here.

And she doesn't just keep it to herself.

She then goes and speaks of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

There is so much anticipation and it builds this tension.

And we can experience it now.

We do experience it now.

That's what the Advent season is about.

We are looking at how Israel anticipated how the world anticipated the coming of Christ and how now we anticipate his second coming because there is still so much work to be done and things can still be very bleak.

Multiple things can be true at the same time.

We've talked a lot about that during this series.

Things can be really difficult, but also really beautiful at the same time.

Anna's life was still difficult even after she met Jesus.

She still was in a place of being a widow.

She still was in a place where her life looked very different than what she anticipated it looking like.

But there is now this hope, this beauty, this reason for fasting and praying and rejoicing.

And it is just Jesus introduces an entirely new perspective, colors we didn't know existed.

And I love seeing how hope in him has impacted my life and can transform even the darkest situations.

Okay, so let's talk now about today's scripture prompt or today's journaling prompt.

I keep saying a different word in front of prompt.

It's a journaling prompt.

Now, I would encourage you to bust out an actual journal.

This is my journal, like a physical journal, and handwrite your answers.

However, we are going for accessible, not perfect.

Fortunately, Jesus came and removed the need for us to be perfect.

Now, that doesn't mean we don't need to try, but it's about using our energy safely and responsibly.

And if handwriting your answers is not going to be the best use of your energy today, that is completely fine.

I get not having the spoons for something.

So other options are typing out your answers, whether that's in your notes app or a text to a friend or text to yourself.

Texting yourself is a fantastic ADHD hack, by the way.

Or that can look like recording a voice memo, either in your voice notes or to a friend.

Or even just sitting down and kind of thinking through the prompt.

Whatever the case may be.

Do something, whatever feels accessible for you today.

So today's prompt is Song Journaling prompt number one and all of these are in the workbook.

The workbook is free.

You can download that at the link in my profile.

So if you want you can rewind the video to hear the prompt again if you need to.

Or you can just go download the free workbook.

But the prompt is Try to get into Mary's shoes and think back through the entire Christmas story.

What emotions do you imagine she was feeling at these points?

Use the feelings wheel and the extra resources to get specific and write them down.

We'll need them later.

Or just save them, just make a note of them.

Or you can come back to them if you're thinking through it.

It really doesn't matter.

Whatever is going to be accessible for you today.

There is I linked to a feelings wheel just to kind of help narrow down and choose specific feelings language that can be really helpful.

You can also just draw from your own knowledge of, you know, the English language and emotions.

Or you can use Google.

I just included the resource because it's handy and is really nice for nailing down specific feelings and how you're feeling and emotions and all that good stuff.

So Prompt A so there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 66 areas that we're going to look at where I would like for you to go through and think about what Mary may have been feeling and put some words to that.

So point A is when the angel shared she would be a mother.

That's Luke 1:28 point B when Joseph couldn't find a room for them and it was clear the baby was coming.

Point C when she held Jesus for the first time in Luke 2.

7.

Point D when she saw Simeon's joy when he held Jesus.

Point E when Jesus was missing on the way home From Jerusalem, Luke 2:45 and finally point F when she watched her little boy as he engaged with the religious leaders in the temple in Luke 2:46 47 so I will turn you loose here to go and complete those journaling prompts and that is all I have for you today.

I would love it if you followed for the rest of Advent.

If you would like to get caught up, you can absolutely do so.

These videos are uploaded as podcast episodes.

Those are available at my podcast, the Trigger Podcast with Rachel Grit, which is available at the link in my profile.

There is a playlist of everything if you really want to like go whole hog and listen to all of the videos.

But yeah, make sure you follow.

Share this with a friend.

If you repost it, that's incredibly helpful to me.

If you share it to a friend, if you text it to a friend, if you DM it to a friend, it's just really, really helpful.

And I will see you in the next one.

Bye.