Hi, friends. Before we get started, I wanted to pop in with a quick note. We did have a little bit of

technical difficulty partway through our recording, so if you hear the audio quality change and it

sounds different, that's why. Thanks for bearing with us and for your patience.

How do we respond to the true reason for this season without adding to our to-do lists?

Well, we're going to talk about it today.

I'm Ruth Jo Simons, and I'm so glad you're tuning in to this season of the Grace Lee's podcast.

My co-host, East I and I are spending this month talking about what it looks like to make room for Christ in the midst of all the Christmas festivities, celebrations, family gatherings, school plays, and gift exchanges.

It's so easy to hustle our way through what's on the calendar in December without stopping to reflect.

So think of today's episode as a simple way to pause

from the hustle and bustle and point your heart to Jesus.

Thanks for joining us today and let's get started.

Oh my goodness, when you were reading off the like Christmas festivities,

celebrations, family gatherings, school plays, gift exchanges, I could like feel my anxiety rising with each one like, oh yeah, and then there's that, and then I have to plan for that. Yeah, we should have had some dramatic music going in the background. We should have. It's coming. It's coming. How many days left? You know, it's that kind of the countdown.

Oh, my goodness. I know.

This season is so tricky sometimes, right?

It's a season we want to be really thoughtful about and intentional with.

And then sometimes it just feels hard.

And then sometimes, like we already said, when we think about it and say, okay, I'm going to be intentional.

It just becomes

another piece of the to-do list instead of something that we're really doing from our heart.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we've already talked about this before too, but the reality is

just that we feel the strain and the stress because we've made up in our minds the idea of what it must be. And so we allow our

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