Ep. 146 || Finding Rest in Advent Transcript
This transcript is made possible by our generous donors. Learn how you can join them. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily: Welcome back to another episode of Risen Motherhood! I’m Emily, and I’m excited to share a little bit about today’s special show. As Laura and I thought about the season leading up to Christmas, we imagined all the busyness of making sure you purchased the right gift for everyone on your list, attending school and company parties, making time for special family outings to look at the lights or cut down the tree, cooking together, or even additional service projects at church or in the community. In the midst of all we have going on, there are opportunities to bless others around us. But sometimes, we forget to do it from an overflow of beholding who God is and what he did for us in Christ. And that’s just what we hope today’s episode helps you to do. Laura and I have invited Christine Hoover, Nana Dolce, Jamie Ivey, Kristen Wetherell, and Caroline Cobb to come alongside us as we find rest in this season. After you listen, be sure to check out our Advent resources page with a round up of Bible studies, devotionals, and activities to draw the whole family to the heart of the season: Christ himself. Before we jump in, we’d love to quickly introduce these ladies to you. We know this is going to go fast, so if you want to find anything we mention here, we’ll list additional information on our show notes in the order each person shared.
Christine Hoover is the host of the By Faith podcast and the author of four books. Her latest is titled With All Your Heart, and it releases March 2020.
Nana Dolce writes for various ministries and serves as an instructor for the Charles-Simeon trust.
Jamie Ivey is a podcaster, speaker, and writer. She hosts The Happy Hour podcast and is the author of If You Only Knew.
Kristen Wetherell is the co-author of Hope When It Hurts and the upcoming book, Fight Your Fears.
Caroline Cobb is a singer/songwriter who loves to tell the story of scripture. Her latest album is titled Tell That Story.
We hope you’ll find this show as restful, contemplative, and inspiring as we did. If you’re able, steal a moment to yourself, grab your favorite holiday beverage, and linger awhile to think about Christ’s advent after the show. Let’s jump in.
Christine Hoover: When I was little, on Christmas Eve, my Aunt Nancy would gather my cousins and me in a back bedroom and hand out parts for our annual Nativity play. We knew our parts before she told us because they never changed from year to year. I was always Mary, and I’d lug my youngest baby cousin around as Baby Jesus, which worked well when she was a baby, but not so well as she grew. Once all the adults found their seats for the production, she’d line us all up, march us into the living room, and we’d act out the Nativity story as she read it from the Bible. I don’t remember what I got for Christmas growing up, but I do have vivid memories of my Aunt Nancy and how much she loved that Nativity story.
Ever since I had kids, when Advent season rolls around, I think about my Aunt Nancy. I think about her because Advent can, if I let it, feel like pressure. Especially when my boys were small, I felt the pressure of making sure I did all the traditions and all the crafts and activities and all the things so that my boys would understand the true meaning of Christmas. The temptation is great for us to put our hope for our kids in what we do during Advent. If we can just find the “right” traditions and go through the Advent calendar without missing a day, we’ll have succeeded at Advent and therefore as moms. This is what we tell ourselves at least.
Traditions are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But if we’re always in a flurry of activity, thinking the activities themselves are what will change our kids’ hearts, we’re missing the point and layering our homes with unnecessary pressure.
This is why rest is important for us moms during the Advent season. More than physical rest, we need to let our hearts and minds rest from activity in order to anticipate. That’s really what Advent is: it’s anticipation of Christ coming. In order to anticipate something, we must think about it in a way that stirs up our joy and our longing, and this sort of thinking needs time.
Anticipation for something in the future happens through remembering what God’s done in the past. In the Bible, God constantly commands his people to remember. After God brought the people out of Egypt, he speaks to parents through Moses, telling them to teach their children God’s commands. But what does he say must come first? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words I command you shall be on your heart.” (Deut 6:5-6). You cannot teach what you don’t have yourself.
So something wonderful happens in our homes when we give ourselves mental space for actual adventing: we as moms find joy in Christmas! And that joy is something our kids pick up on. It’s like the flight attendant always says: put on your oxygen mask before helping others. Our kids know intuitively what we actually love and find joy in. And that’s why I think about my Aunt Nancy at Christmas: her love of the Nativity story implanted a seed in me. We love what those we love, love.
So moms, make mental space to Advent yourself and then whatever tradition or activity you use with your kids will be the tool you can use to share your own joy in Christ.
Nana Dolce: Of all the holidays we celebrate, there is something about Christmas that seems to demand perfection: the perfect tree, beautiful decorations, great food, the right gifts, meaningful traditions, and my personal longing: perfect children. I want my children to treasure Christ more than they do their gifts. In fact, if I had it my way, my kids would be quoting Scripture about the Magi and Jesus as our true gift while opening presents on Christmas morning. You might guess that that has yet to happen in my house.
More often than not, my advent season is filled with less than perfect moments. And in some ways, that is fitting.
Galatians 4:4 says that: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman.” At just the right time, the Father, in His wisdom, sent His Son to fulfill His promises in the redemption of sinners. But the fullness of time is the climax of a long, unfolding story that Scripture takes its time in telling and packs with many imperfect people. From a naked Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15, to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses and Israel, to David and the kings, to the prophets, down to a poor virgin girl next to a manger, the story of redemption unfolds to display God’s perfect power through incredibly weak people.
We live on the other side of the cross today. Our salvation has been accomplished but our eyes are fixed on another “fullness of time”, a second Advent when our Christ will come and bring the full and enduring sinless perfection that we long to experience. There is a day coming when my heart--and God willing, my children’s--will perfectly adore Christ as our treasure. Until then, may our weakness this Advent season display and reveal God’s perfect strength, as we pray: “Even so Lord, Jesus come!”
Jamie Ivey: I think as a mama, rest is so important during Advent, because life can feel a little bit crazy in the months leading up to when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Advent is about looking forward and remembering. We remember that God sent his Son for us. When we sit and rest in the fact that God always had a plan and he was always sending a rescuer and a redeemer, when we celebrate that on Christmas morning, it takes away the grasp the hustle and bustle has on my heart. When I sit and rest, remembering what God did for us, it’s good. As a mama, I need that in my personal life, but I also need to reflect that to my kids.
The way I can reflect that to my kids is by first remembering it for myself, and then, second, talking to them about it. Advent can feel overwhelming, because even in our Christian culture, it tells us to do more: make the ornaments, read the stories, countdown the calendar, have the crafts. If you go to Pinterest and look up “Advent,” you’re overwhelmed already! My encouragement to you as a mama—as someone who has been there, done that, on the other side of little kids—is to remember it’s not about how much you do. You don’t need to look at everything on Pinterest, every handout your church gives you, or everything your friend is doing. You don’t need to think you have to do all of those things for your kids to know about Jesus’ birth in a biblical sense. What I really want encourage you to do is to pull back and find one thing you can do—and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Your kids will enjoy it. The most important thing you can do is talk to your kids about what the birth of Jesus means to us as Christ-followers. And if you do that with a craft, that’s awesome. But really, what your kids want is to hear you tell them things and model that you believe it.
I encourage you to talk to your kids about Advent more than just the times that you sit down with the Jesse tree, or ornaments, or the countdown. Point them to the gospel, point them to the reason we needed a Savior and rescuer all along. It’s because of our brokenness. When you talk to your kids about that, you’re being intentional. You’re not creating the most epic traditions that your family might have, but you’re intentionally pointing your kids to Jesus.
Kristen Wetherell: Advent is a season of wonder and worship. Our daughter is two years old, and it’s our desire to help her see and love the true meaning of Christmas, when God sent his only Son, Jesus, to earth, to seek and save the lost.
There are so many good ways we can encourage our families to reflect on Christ during the
month of December: We can read Advent books and devotionals. We can establish family traditions to help us look at the Christmas story. But nothing, and I’m convinced of this, nothing is better or more necessary than hearing God speak through his word.
In Isaiah 55:10-11, God says: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
God’s word is God speaking, and his voice is powerful. It changes hearts. That’s what we most desire for our kids, that they would come to Jesus, the only Lord and Savior, for new hearts, in repentance and faith. And it’s what we most desire for ourselves, that God would change us into the image of Jesus as we walk with him by faith. And Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
During the Advent season, yes, we can use great resources and establish Christ-centered
traditions––these are good things. But we can also rest in the simplicity and power of God’s precious word to change the hearts of sinners––ourselves included. God’s work through his word happens gradually over time as we faithfully hear him speak in Scripture. This will look different for each of us, but how might you read God’s word over your family this month? We can open Scripture on our own, read it with our kids, and pray it over them. We can read the accounts of Jesus’ birth in the Gospels, the many prophecies about his coming, and passages about the cross and Christ’s love for sinners.
Be encouraged this Advent season, that as you read the word over your own heart and over
your kids, God promises that it will do his work. It will “accomplish that which he purposes, and shall succeed in the thing for which he sent it.” You can rest in that.
Caroline Cobb: A few years ago, we lived in a different city and I was a part of the women's Bible study at our church. We were on our last week for the fall, about to take a break for Christmas, when the leader, Leslie Strader, stood up and gave an illustration that has really stuck with me.
Leslie held up a big, empty mason jar. The jar was meant to represent our time in this season. Then she held up some larger stones and some sand.
First, she took the sand and poured it into the jar, and then she tried to fit the stones in—but they wouldn't all fit! Then, she did it the other way. She put the stones in first, and poured the sand in on top. And guess what? It all fit.
I think what she was trying to communicate to us is during this busy season of Advent, when so much is pulling on us as moms to make this time as special and meaningful and as fun as possible for our families, we have to ask two questions:
First, knowing our limited amount of time and energy, what are the stones and what is the sand? What are the most important things we want to incorporate into this season, and what is extra?
Second, how do we make sure we're putting the stones in first? "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you."
I'm still a work in progress here, but I've realized that my "stones" that I want to prioritize are those things that build anticipation in myself and in my kids. Advent is a season of expectancy, like seeing the first bit of a sunrise and then watching it slowly grow brighter and brighter, until finally! you see the full brightness of the sun on Christmas Day. I want to build that sense of anticipation for my family.
One way I can do that is by spending time with him myself, giving him the first fruits of my time - whether that's first thing in the morning when my kids are still sleeping, or when my kids are settled in watching a show in the afternoon or taking a nap.
And with my kids, it's lighting the Advent candle on Sundays. It's doing some kind of daily devotional—short and simple—that builds anticipation for Jesus.
My second "stone" is being together as a family. So, I love planning to do fun things like ice skating together or watching Elf. But I don't do other things, like tons of crafts or Elf on the Shelf, not because there's something wrong with doing these things, but because I've found that those things, for me, are like sand crowding out the stones.
This image of the jar and the sand and the rocks has given me a ton of freedom. First, that I don't have to do all the things. Second, that I don't have to do it perfectly either! As a mom, my temptation has been to get an A+ as the most fun, the most intentional mom ever during Christmas. But I know from experience that I won't get an A+. And that's not the gospel anyway. Instead, I can offer my empty jar to the Lord, and ask him to use me as a vessel, a jar of clay, carrying the beautiful message of Christ and his coming this Christmas.