Well, howdy, Mark and Grace Triscoll here with a special holiday edition Exo Marriage Podcast.

And during the holiday season, couples are forced to deal with some high-pressure dishes.

Usually time is at a premium.

You're very busy. Usually as a result, you're tired. You're kind of overworked trying to get the house done and work caught up.

In addition, there are financial pressures.

Usually you spend more than you were hoping for and you find yourself with credit card debt.

And also there's the pressures of extended family,

potential travel, work obligations for parties.

What's supposed to be a really joyful, happy, sacred season

can be a very stressful season.

And how important important just in general, but especially during

the holidays, is it to just forgive a lot, give a lot of grace to not be super picky or critical or fault finding, but to try to find ways to thank, to encourage,

to bless, and to serve. It's very important. There's a lot of things that can burden you during

the holidays, and one way to unburden is to forgive and be gracious with people. And forgiveness is the gospel.

That's what Jesus came to do so that we could do that in return to others. It's a gift that we can

give and we receive it from Jesus first. And it's, if we don't do that, then we are carrying lots of

baggage around with us and we're short-tempered and

become self-centered and our hurt can hurt others. Our unforgiveness turns into bitterness and takes

a root in our life. And then holidays are worse because we're just even stressed kind of bumps

that bitterness and that unforgiveness,

and we can, you know, bleed that out to other people.

Well, and during the holidays, it's the season of giving.

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