S E47: Episode 47 | ADHD-Friendly Advent Day 24

It's day 24 of our ADHD friendly advent study.

If you are just finding us, you are not behind.

We are just moving right along.

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

If you're seeing my face for the first time.

Hi, my name is Rachel.

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

So let's go ahead and dive right in.

If you do not have the workbook.

The workbook is free.

It is downloadable at the link over in my profile.

It has all of the questions, all of the lyrics, everything including a suggested schedule.

If your brain works better with structure and this is designed to be free flowing, you don't have to do it exactly how the suggested schedule is set up, you can kind of do it.

However is going to work for your brain.

We're not doing guilt here.

We're doing what's effective and a lot of time.

What's a lot of times what's more effective than trying to do something the right way is doing it the way that just works well with our brains.

Okay, so the first thing I would like to have you do is go listen to this week's song.

We have done a different song for each week of Advent and this week is Mary did you know I have to recommend the Pentatonix version.

It is my husband's absolute favorite.

Like Mary did you know by Pentatonix is his favorite Christmas song period.

And so I would encourage you to go pause the video here, go listen to the song, paying special attention to the lyrics and then come back here and we will read the scripture and then go through today's journaling prompt.

Alright, now we're going to read through today's scripture section which is Luke 2, 39, 52.

I am in the ESV and when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.

And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God was upon him.

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of Passover.

And when he was 12 years old, they went up according to customers.

And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey.

But then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances.

And when they did not find Him.

They returned to Jerusalem searching for him.

After three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions.

And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

And.

And when his parents saw him, they were astonished.

And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us so?

Behold, your Father and I have been searching for you in great distress.

And he said to them, why were you looking for me?

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.

And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

That is such an interesting passage, because we know that Jesus was perfect, right?

He did not sin even as a teenager, slash preteen.

Like, if you have ever spent a considerable amount of time with a preteen boy, you know how absolutely wild it is that Jesus went through that stage and did not sin.

But that says something really interesting here about the parent child dynamic.

So Jesus parents pretty clearly feel disrespected here.

They feel like he has done something negative to them by how he handled this situation.

But we know because Jesus could not sin, that that was not the case.

So whether we are operating from the lens of a child speaking to a parent or a parent speaking to a child, it's pretty clear here that a parent feeling disrespected does not mean they have been disrespected.

And that can translate to really any kind of relationship.

Just because we feel like wrong has been done to us doesn't necessarily mean wrong has been done to us.

And so that can honestly be a call for us.

You know, I'm a parent.

I have three kiddos, one biological, two absolutely beautiful bonus children.

And sometimes I can tend to make my experience of parenthood about me versus being a good parent to my children.

And if I get my feelings hurt because I feel like my experience of parenthood isn't what I want it to be, that does not necessarily mean that my kids are doing something wrong.

That can be more about me than about them.

And it's clear again, based on the fact that we know Jesus never sinned, that that's what's happening here with Mary and Joseph.

Mary and Joseph are like, what the heck, kid?

Why would you do this to us?

And Jesus is like, I didn't do anything to you.

So this is a really interesting example and can be a really good reminder to us that when we feel kind of weird and wonky in relationships, it's always the best idea to turn inward first and go, is it possible this is a me problem?

Is it possible that I am not being mistreated?

This is just a situation where my feelings are hurt for some reason because I am interpreting something negatively when I don't have to.

Now, that is not a reason to just accept mistreatment.

Jesus was not mistreating his parents here, so he was not essentially asking his parents to accept mistreatment.

And we are not just commanded to accept mistreatment either.

Fun fact, the verse about turning the other cheek is not about going, oh, you hit me on the side of this face here, you want to hit me again.

That's not at all what it's about in the Bible Project has some really fantastic podcast episodes digging into that.

Jesus is actually more of like a malicious compliance kind of a guy than you would initially think, and it's absolutely fascinating.

But the point here is we can always turn inward and look at how we can approach a situation better.

Because when we are feeling disrespected, it doesn't necessarily mean we are being disrespected.

Okay, I will hop off of my soapbox there and we will get right into today's journaling prompt.

All of these prompts, everything is available in the workbook, but I will go ahead and read today's journaling prompt.

So we are on song journaling prompt number two.

Take your list of emotions from question one.

So that's the prompt we did yesterday.

If you did not do that yet, I would encourage you go hop over.

It's going to be easiest to look at it in the workbook versus trying to scrub through the video and find where it's listed.

But yes, in yesterday's prompt, we went through and looked at a couple of different points in the Christmas story and kind of speculated about the emotions Mary may have been feeling then.

So if you haven't done that again, either hop over to the previous video or go download the workbook and look at the prompt there.

Before digging into this one, take your list of emotions from question one and look through it.

Choose one positive emotion and one negative emotion from your list and journal about a time when you felt each.

So I will share my answers to this.

But first I want to encourage you to pause the video and go journal.

That can look like writing in your physical journal, which is what I recommend.

You can type it out.

You can talk it out in a voice memo or even just out loud.

You can even just sit and think through it.

If all of that feels a little bit too difficult today, that is completely fine.

So pause the video here.

Go journal.

However, that's going to look for you today, and then come back and we'll talk about it.

All right?

Did you do it?

If not, this is your second chance to pause.

Go do the journaling prompt, and then come back here.

But if you did do it, let's go ahead and discuss.

So the first.

So the.

The emotions that I picked to kind of dig into were determination in the face of something really, really difficult.

I kind of chose to interpret the prompt that I wrote in a different way than I wrote it.

But whatever you end up doing is fine.

So the situation that I'm looking at here is point B.

When Joseph couldn't find a room for them and it was clear the baby was coming, my initial instinct was to go.

Mary must have been, like, panicked and freaking out.

But at the same time, we see her handle the angel telling her, hey, you are going to buy all appearances, and it's going to be assumed by those around you that you have committed what is considered to be one of the worst possible sins a young woman can commit.

That could make you a candidate for being unalived by society.

That's going to happen.

And she handles that so incredibly well.

We looked at what the actual words mean in the original text, and her response is basically like, okay, how's this gonna go down?

Like, not like, what.

What are you talking about?

She doesn't have fear related to this.

She just kind of is like, all right, let's.

Let's do the dang thing.

And so I feel like the sense that I get of Mary's personality and of her determination is that when this is happening, when Joseph can't find them a room and the baby's coming, she's not really freaking out.

She's more of like, okay, so this is happening.

Let's go right ahead.

And the best experience that I have relating to that is, so I went through a really difficult divorce a couple of years ago.

And before I talk about it, I want to make it clear that I was absolutely not perfect in it whatsoever.

I had a lot of anxiety, and my anxiety very much got the better of me.

Not just anxiety, but straight up fear.

I was so incredibly fearful that even when things were happened that were not, you know, a direct attack or something negative or malicious, I often interpreted it that way.

So I very much contributed to the negative dynamic there.

My ex husband and I have since built a really solid co parenting relationship.

The redemptive work that God has done there is absolutely amazing.

But it was really difficult there for a while and he will be the first one to tell you.

There were often a lot of really negative things said.

I'm trying to word this kind of delicately, but long story short, we actually had to exchange our son at the police station for I think at least over a year, maybe even two years because things were so volatile.

And I can 100% honestly say that not a single time did I engage in the vitriol.

And sometimes there were like verbal confrontations and names were called and it was just a really difficult situation.

Again, he has done a lot of work on himself and is just like a strong man of God now and a wonderful father, a wonderful husband, a wonderful co parent.

Like, I'm very, very proud of him and the work that he has put in.

And he knows this.

We've had conversations about this, but having to steel myself and go, okay, I'm about to walk into this police station and I know that something nasty is waiting for me.

I'm not going to engage.

I'm going to try to show kindness and show love and at the very least be neutral.

And so that that moment of determination when you're like, okay, this is gonna suck, but I'm gonna do it, that is something that I can very, very much relate to.

And I'm really grateful for being able to look back on those times and go, wow, I didn't handle everything perfectly.

But I am really proud of the fact that I did not engage in these nasty back and forths.

And so that, that is something that I can, that I kind of can see some parallels there between, you know, my situation and what I, you know, imagine Mary may have been feeling.

And the second situation that I chose was point C, when Mary held Jesus for the first time.

And that is this like very early confirmed hope, if that makes any sense at all.

So, so we know Mary was promised that Jesus was going to come into the world through her, like literally through her body, like through her body.

And I can't even imagine what that must have been like, feeling this baby grow inside of you and then finally the baby is here and you're holding him.

But it's also so much deeper and richer than that because you know that this is the savior of the world.

And so seeing that early promise come to fruition of, okay, God told me I'm going to have A baby.

And now there's a baby in my arms.

Step one of the promise has been fulfilled.

And it just continued to snowball from there.

Just, it's hopeful, but it's deeper than that.

It's slightly confirmed hope that is kind of anchoring things that you believe to be coming.

And I can so relate to that feeling on my wedding day.

So, so my husband and I got married very fast.

It was less than six months from the day we matched online, which I do not recommend, I do not recommend it at all unless God is the one authoring your timeline, which was very much the case in our situation.

We were both terrified.

We had been through awful divorces and were very, very nervous, honestly probably just straight up scared about getting into another difficult marriage.

And so we prayed and fasted and sought the Lord and sought wise counsel and did pre engagement counseling and had a mentor couple and would take days off of each other like, like away from each other completely with no contact multiple days every month to just seek the Lord and pray and fast.

And so when our wedding day finally came, which fun fact, my husband actually did not know it was our wedding day, he thought we were getting married 10 days later.

And I surprised him with a surprise birthday party that then ended up being a surprise wedding.

And it was best thing ever.

Like, I have a picture of his face when he found out we were getting married that day.

And he's like, like, it's amazing.

But just the hope that I felt that day, even the fact that it was supposed to storm, it was supposed to storm that day and our wedding was outside.

We got married under these beautiful autumn colors in his parents backyard.

It was just, it was absolutely beautiful.

But it was supposed to storm that day.

The radar said it was going to storm, the weather said it was going to storm.

It was cloudy.

And then right before we were going to go outside, the clouds broke and it ended up being the most beautiful day.

And seeing all of these things fall into place, even little things like the weather as confirmation, okay, maybe we were hearing God's voice correctly.

Maybe this is his plan for us.

Maybe we can proceed.

And having so much hope for the things that were to come.

And now here we are with two years of marriage under our belts and it is so abundantly clear to me that God absolutely led us together.

He led us to be married.

And it's just such a beautiful story.

And we can look back on that story.

We can look back on that day of all the hope that we had and the confirmation that we've had since then that God had led us together.

That gives us so much more confidence in our faith moving forward that we do hear God's voice.

We do sense his leading.

He is guiding us.

He is is looking out for us.

Like our marriage is such beautiful proof of how God cares for us and specifically our relationship with Jesus as members of the church.

It is just like I can't even put words to it, even though I've just put a lot of words to it.

So those are my answers.

I would love to hear yours down below.

I would love to hear, you know, how you relate to the different emotions that Mary may have been feeling throughout different points of the Christmas story.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

I would love to have you join us.

For the remainder of Advent, I am posting a video every single day.

All of the work is in the workbook, which again is free.

You can download that at the link in my profile.

All these videos are uploaded as podcast episodes on the True Grit Podcast with Rachel Grit, which is available at the link in my profile as well.

And I will see you in tomorrow's video.

Bye.