Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the word, prayers, in our heart.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well-spicked.

Less chaos, more Jesus.

That's what my guest, Becky Kaiser, the founder and CEO of Sacred Holidays, is offering in her new book,

Sacred Holidays, today. Goodness, don't we all want that? It's really what this ministry

Sacred Holidays does, and I love being a small part of that, actually, as a contributor this

year into the Advent study put out by Sacred Holidays, he is, which so many of you are doing

right now, actually.

This wife, mom, and author loves the word and loves to equip women in the Word and help them

live that out. And that's a great love of mine too, so it brings me even more joy to welcome

Becky Kaiser to our show today. We're ready for your friend. Let's go.

Thank you. to our show today. We're ready for your friend. Let's go. Until a few years ago, I felt like every time the holidays rolled around that I would turn

into the 13-year-old version of myself, tell me that some of you can relate to this,

that even though I loved God, even though I loved

the holidays, and even though I love my family, I would lose my mind that somehow I get caught up

in the whimsy and the chaos of the holidays. And I realized standing there on a Christmas Eve service

with tears streaming down my face,

holding that candle, singing silent night, and realizing I had missed Jesus, that I had

focused so much on the chaos that I had missed him. And I decided that year no more, that I

would choose instead less chaos and more of Jesus. And I want to encourage you

by looking at the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the birth story of Jesus himself,

that Mary, much like you and I, was just an ordinary girl who was engaged to be married.

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