Thanks for listening to this Susie Larson Live podcast available thanks to support from listeners like you.

Welcome to Sissy Larson Live. Always so honored to get to spend this time with you.

In fact, I look forward to bringing you conversations every single day that hopefully

inspire you in your faith walk, that deepening your understanding of God's word and that

heightens your awareness of his very real presence in your life., the deepening your understanding of God's word, and that heightens your

awareness of his very real presence in your life. As I mentioned last Friday, I've taken last

Friday and this Friday to draw some content from my book, Prepare Him Room. Also today, I'm going to

tell us some stories of our, some of our holidays that took turns that we weren't expecting,

weren't hoping for, but how we met God in them.

I'm praying so with all my heart that by the end of this hour, you just feel settled into the

love of God, expectant to see him meet you on the path where you find yourself right now. And,

you know, so often we want relief. We look at these commercials of Christmas holidays, and especially if you're walking through hardship or times of sorrow, it feels like such a vast chasm between you and what looks like on the screen.

And sometimes we forget that those people are actors with lights and scripts, and they go home to their very broken, imperfect lives.

And I always say this, that a commercialized Christmas causes either pride or despair.

We either are proud of our accomplishments of creating this facade that everybody's impressed by

or despair that we cannot reach it because our lives are just not there.

Our lives don't match it.

But the true Christmas spirit, I mean, Jesus came when people were desperate.

He came when people were suffering injustice.

He came when people were praying for a breakthrough.

And sometimes I know from my own story, I've wanted relief when I could tell God wanted redemption.

I just wanted relief from my immediate circumstances.

...