Be Still and Know that You Can Survive (and Thrive) During the Holidays!

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathens, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

It’s here. The holiday season. Take a deep breath. Don’t panic! There is hope. Hope that you’ll get through the next two months without feeling overwhelmed by the preparations, the decorations, the shopping, the card-sending, the parties, the family members who never seem to get along.

We all know that Jesus is the reason for the season, but sometimes that truth gets lost in the hustle and bustle of holiday prep. We know that we need to “be still,” but find it hard to stop spinning like whirling dervishes. The traditions we at first so happily engage in can quickly become overwhelming, leaving us feeling depleted and with little time for reflecting on the birth of our Savior.

Perhaps you can identify with some of the seasonal struggles below:

“I used to get overwhelmed by decorating, felt my house had to look perfect. I overcame that by dialing back my expectations and making a more reasonable schedule for decorating.” - CJ

“I love volunteering at my kids’ schools, and I tend to overbook myself during the holidays, trying to volunteer at everyone’s party, on every field trip, and for every program. A few years ago, my busy schedule and my ‘yes’ to everything had me overwhelmed. I normally start listening to Christmas music in October, but that year I just couldn’t even listen. I realized my many ‘yesses’ had caused me to just go through the motions and not even stop to listen to songs praising God for sending His Son!

I learned over the following years that I can say ‘yes’ to one or two things, but that I also need to give myself time to sit and enjoy the lights on our trees and listen to music. I now get up earlier than everyone else and turn on soft music and the tree lights so that I can start my day with ‘breathing time.’” – Kimberly

“About two years ago we were buying our kids gifts just to buy them. I was literally buying things so that they would have the same number of presents. Last year, we did the four gifts (something you want, something you need, something you wear, something you read) – so much less stress and we were able to spend more time together on the reason for the season. This year, we are going to try to give more experiences than gifts!” – Melissa

“Buying gifts for EVERYONE got out of hand for us several years ago (choosing that perfect gift combined with the expense), so we made a new rule: gifts only for kids plus an occasional name-draw gift exchange for adults. It’s really all about the time spent together!” – Jess

“I think all of the last minute ‘small’ stuff really gets us frazzled: gifts for teachers, friends of my tweens, class parties, gift exchanges, dance company girls and instructors, coaches, mailman … you name it. It can get crazy, and takes the focus off of the peace and calm of Christ’s birth if we let it.” – Sarah

“I bought a puppy at the last minute (literally Christmas Eve) just to try to have the very best gift a boy could want. Don’t buy a pet if you’re caught up in the moment. We spent five years trying to adjust to having a very excitable dog until we finally decided it wasn’t suitable to our lifestyle and gave him to a friend. Since then, I’ve tried to be more practical with gift planning.” – Sandra

“Best Christmas I ever had was a destination Christmas so that we could make memories (in lieu of gifts). It eliminated all stress and materialism.” – Donna

Can you identify with any of the stories above? It’s so easy to get lost in trying make everyone happy that we wind up losing out on opportunities to celebrate Christ’s birth. Whether it’s sitting for a few minutes in front of a softly lit tree listening to songs of praise, enjoying “quiet time” instead of rushing out to shop, or scaling back on decorating to avoid a holiday hissy fit, there are ways to keep Jesus at the center of your Christmas season.

Join the Women’s Ministry on Sunday, November 10 at 6:30pm as we “Gather Around the Table” for honest conversation with women of all ages and stages about how to not only survive the Christmas season, but thrive in our relationships with Christ. Click here for more details and to RSVP.

Jennifer Dennard

Interested in becoming a Women’s Ministry blog contributor? Contact Jenn Dennard ( ) for details.

Interested in joining the Women’s Ministry team? Visit our Teams page to discover our various committees and which one might be the best fit for you.

In need of prayer or a fellow woman in Christ to chat with? The Women’s Ministry team would love to be there for you. Email Kim Edde ( ) to connect with one of our team members.

Connect with the Women's Ministry via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bhbcsistersoftheheart) or Instagram (bhbc_women)

When you’re tired of embracing brokenness

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

For most of my adult years, this idea of embracing brokenness and finding beauty in our messes has been winding its way through the narrative of my faith story in one form or another. For a while, I found great comfort in the “I’m a beautiful mess” mentality because I felt like I was a mess and everything about my life was a mess. Good. But messy.

As a young mom, there were always piles of laundry, toys invading the living room, crumbled goldfish and lost French fries living in the back seat of the car, and boxes of outgrown clothes piled up in the back of the kids’ closets (and mine for that matter!). In the most literal sense, my life was messy, no matter how hard I tried to keep it orderly. I finally quit fighting against what seemed to be determined to take over my life and leaned into the beautiful mess of being a young mom.

Mothering young children in my sleep-deprived state was … exhausting. Trying to figure out how to be a wife, much less a good and Godly one … also exhausting. That Proverbs 31 lady set the bar way too high, right? (No one had told me that passage was a poem to be used as a celebration for women and I’m a pretty literal girl.) Handling all the household duties, being involved in various ministries, and running a little side business left me depleted. The only time I gave to nurturing my relationship with Jesus, I went in looking for peace, comfort, and superhuman endurance. I held tight to that idea that Jesus could love me even then, as messy and tired as I was, and call me beautiful - a word that was very rarely attributed to me during my life up to that point.

But that was where I stopped. I didn’t really want to examine the state of my spirit. I only wanted to own my surface-level messiness and chaos, the socially acceptable part that there are 27,492 memes to back myself up with. Truly owning my spiritual state of selfishness, my lack of desire for time with Jesus that would have made it a priority rather than an afterthought … not so much. I took it all for granted. Not only was my life a mess, but so was my soul. But I was in denial. I went to church with my husband and kids. I served in multiple capacities in ministry. I loved Jesus and had a relationship with him. That was enough.

As I hit the “midlife crisis” years, I started digging deeper into my faith. The depth of how truly broken and messy I was rolled over my heart and God laid some beautiful framework that would support what was coming next. My perfect, textbook American Dream, fairytale life fell apart. My marriage ended. I began the messy, complicated process of divorce - the death of my dreams, and a life of co-parenting with a person who went from being my best friend to what felt like an enemy. My true self — my heart — could not have been splayed out before my eyes more clearly than it was in those moments of grief and regret. My life was overwhelmingly marked by brokenness, but my heart was tired of embracing it. There had to be more than this.

I recently read this quote:

“It’s a grace to regret. Grace allows you to face your sin, to own it and not shift the blame. But it is also grace that forgives what has been exposed. Grace forces you to feel the pain of your regrets, but never asks you to pay for them, because the price has already been paid by Jesus.” 

― Paul David Tripp

In my younger years of mothering, embracing my brokenness meant grasping at grace. But my view of grace was limited and one-sided. In reality, grace is multi-faceted, limited only by what we choose to receive. I only wanted the grace that alleviated my guilt for all the ways that I was failing in my life, or for how I responded to circumstances beyond my control. I was selfish, I gossiped, I was passive aggressive, I withheld forgiveness, and I was prideful, to name a few. I knew God would forgive me for those, but honestly, I didn’t ever want to be pricked by just how much I actually sinned and how deeply that sin wounded God’s heart. I didn’t want to own the true state of my broken soul. I just wanted a free pass to spend some time wallowing in my broken state. The whole idea of “I’m a beautiful mess” became my justification for my behavior. After all, God loves us in our brokenness, right?

I embraced my brokenness, wearing it like a badge of honor. I’m thankful God didn’t leave that badge firmly pinned to my chest like I might have (most certainly) wanted to do. One day, the grace of regret finally washed over me. I now am embracing the fact that even though I am broken, a sinner who is oh so selfish and prideful, Jesus loves me. The grace isn’t just that God is willing to forgive us. The grace is that he loves us enough to prick our hearts, to cause unrest in our souls, so that we see our need for confession. And then, the grace is that He always forgives.

Instead of embracing brokenness, I am embracing rescue and restoration. I’ll happily own that I’m indeed broken and messy. That much hasn’t changed. But now I’m embracing grace. Not the comfortable kind that gives me a free pass, though. In His grace, God revealed and will continue to reveal my brokenness to me. I am a sinner and will continue to be until I pass away from this earth. But I choose to embrace the rescue and restoration given to me and the grace that reminds me of my need for it. Over and over.

Grace upon grace upon grace.

 Maria Thomas

Interested in becoming a Women’s Ministry blog contributor? Contact Jenn Dennard (  ) for details.

Interested in joining the Women’s Ministry team? Visit our Teams page to discover our various committees and which one might be the best fit for you.

In need of prayer or a fellow woman in Christ to chat with? The Women’s Ministry team would love to be there for you. Email Kim Edde (   ) to connect with one of our team members.

Connect with the Women's Ministry via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bhbcsistersoftheheart).