When the choas of life, and miracle of advent collide.

Dear Best Friend,

It's been a while since I've written, for a lot of reasons.. But mostly because I'm also feeling the weight of your last post. Overwhelmed, confused, exhausted, spent.. I'm realizing (again) the blessing of having such a close best friend who feels things similarly to me. Our greatest strength, which has brought us closer together, is our empathy for people and the love that's grown out of it. But the second I feel like it's helped me in my life, I also feel crippled by caring too much about what other people think about or expect from me. I think that's where the emotional exhaustion comes from that serves as the undercurrent beneath the physical tiredness of working too many hours and doing too many things at once.

I think it's true that the two of us feel so deeply the emotions of others. We try hard to support and set others up for success and, by the end of the week, we often have very little left to give. Working in the public sector for me and working in special education for you have been gifts that have sharpened us and made us better people - but even sharpening means being willing to lose some of yourself in the process, to sacrifice the lesser important things for the sake of what's at stake: the integrity and intrinsic value of the people around us.

I honestly think that through talking with you every day, sharing the events of the day with each other, has shown me God's hand. I mean, how crazy is it that He brought you and your amazing family all the way from South Africa to Pennsylvania to walk through life with me?! He knew that we were kindred spirits and that we would need friendly support through our journeys of servant leadership.

December is one of those months where the Christmas season hits right when you need that reminder the most. As you are wrapping up the first half of your school year and I'm filing away all of the community projects I have gotten to be a part of this year, it would be easy to get stressed by the countdown to gift-giving, the amount of work that needs to get done before vacation, and the responsibilities of life at home that wait for you after a long day of work.

Even this week has been, for me, full of a teething baby, the struggle (and failure) to find the perfect and most thoughtful gifts for people I love, middle of the night screaming wake up calls, long work hours, and a Christmas party. And now, as I sit here on a Saturday afternoon, not feeling capable of cleaning up around the house, praying Jacob sleeps just a little bit longer, trying to fight off the temptation to sit on the couch and watch cheesy Christmas movies for hours, I'm reminded that our rest is found in the truth of the manger and the redemption on the cross.

We celebrate advent as the beginning of the earthly story of Jesus. The moment where God didn't just meet us halfway, He joined us in our mess and scooped us up out of our sin, offered us love even though we don't deserve it and offered us life (at the cost of Jesus' own, no less), and gives us rest in His presence.

Every once in a while, I feel like God gives me an outside perspective on myself and I laugh at my foolishness and "self-sufficiency." Why do I forget so quickly that I'm not capable of doing anything good or worthwhile on my own? God's shown me my lack, revealed His salvation, placed an incredible network of wise believers in my life and I still try to accomplish things on my own! It's comical in a sad sort of way.

But I feel God's loving gaze focusing on me this Christmas season and His still, small voice whispering to me, reminding me of His grace and its sufficiency for me. And I hope He's been doing the same for you. He's been subtly removing the weight of my pride, the opinions of others, my own high expectations for myself to do everything right and the hope of recognition by my fellow human beings to give me energy and affirmation. Instead, He's been flooding my heart with His everlasting, gracious affirmations of my identity as His child and the joy of the gift that Jesus is to the world, the gift of rest, living water, and life-sustaining grace.

I think I could go on and on and on.. But I suppose my point in writing to you is this: my hope and prayer for you this December is for God to show you rest. That, once all the homework is graded, paperwork completed, the classroom is cleaned up, you will have the chance to breathe in grace and breathe out relief. That God will pull off the burdens of the world from your shoulders and allow you to rest - reminding you that He's holding you in His arms and it's okay to let go of all the worries in the world for a while (or forever). That there's people like me praying for you and your students, who are blessed by just knowing you and getting to be a part of your story. That God is totally and undeniably in control of all the details, big and small.

Love you so much,

Bethany