[BONUS] Preparing Our Hearts for the Holidays with Lanier Ivester

Jesus Calling: Stories of Faith

Jesus Calling

802298, Presenceofgod, Christianity, Podcast, Sarahyoung, Experiencepeace, Religion & Spirituality, Jesuscalling

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As we enter the season of Advent and Christmas, we’re bound to be overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. The list of dishes to prepare, gifts to buy and wrap, cards to send, and parties to attend feels never-ending… which often results in the real reason for the season getting pushed aside. But when we set time aside to properly prepare our hearts to honor the birth of Jesus, the experience of Christmas can take on a whole new meaning—becoming a season of hope, rest, and renewal.

For this special holiday bonus episode, we’re joined by Lanier Ivester, a writer and homemaker who has taken time-honored holiday traditions and shaped and molded them to fit her family—keeping restful intentionality at the center of it all. Lanier shares how to let go of what doesn’t serve your soul, how to embrace the imperfection that makes gathering with our communities more authentic and real, and how to find glimmers of joy when you’re celebrating Christmas with a grieving heart.

Links, Products, and Resources Mentioned:
Jesus Calling Podcast

Jesus Calling

Jesus Always

Jesus Listens

Jesus Listens for Advent & Christmas

Jesus Calling for Christmas

Lanier Ivester’s website

Glad & Golden Hours by Lanier Ivester

Lanier Ivester’s Facebook

Lanier Ivester’s Instagram

Lanier Ivester’s Twitter

Interview Quotes

“We can burden ourselves even with wanting to bring intention into the holiday season. But the fact is that very turning of our hearts towards intention is itself intention. And that's honoring to God.” - Lanier Ivester

“In Christ, we can serve and prepare for the holidays and love our people and do all the things from a place of unconditional love. And that is a resting place. We don't have to do it all. We can step in, out of the wind of our culture, and just take refuge under His wings and really ask Him for wisdom.” - Lanier Ivester

“Scientists will tell you that taste and scent really create these pathways in our brain. They are what's known as memory bridges that can connect us to a place and a people and a time really effortlessly. And it's for that reason I've subconsciously carried forward a lot of my favorite meals and recipes from my childhood and brought them into my celebrations to this day with my husband and our friends.” - Lanier Ivester

“It's definitely a combination of anticipation and savoring. We need both, and there's so little room in our culture for either one of those.” - Lanier Ivester

“The reality is, many times the holiday season can be extremely difficult. Whatever we're walking through—whether it's grief, whether it's loss, whether it's deferred hopes or unanswered prayers, or things just not being the way that we want them to be—the holidays really amp that up, because it's easy for expectations of what a happy holiday is supposed to look like to slam up against our reality and make us feel a sense of lack in the light of what seems to be going on in the world around us.” - Lanier Ivester

“Traditions serve our relationships. The traditions that we love are a container for our relationships—they were not the thing. The people are the thing, and the traditions hold the people.” - Lanier Ivester

“We serve a God who is in the details of our lives, and it's very easy to overlook that or think something is not large enough or important enough for His notice. But when we sit down with our plans for our holidays, our plans for our gatherings, and invite Him first before we invite anyone else into this space—asking Him to create a welcoming atmosphere—I think that that brings our holidays into a much more sacred space.” - Lanier Ivester

“Advent makes space for our grief. It gives us freedom to name our sorrows, our longings, our yearnings to the One who will set them right, ultimately. But the flip side of that is if Advent makes space for our grief, Christmas makes space for our joy.” - Lanier Ivester

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*Episode produced by Four Eyes Media*

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Life Audio. Let every heart prepare him room. Bring Jesus into your home before you hang that first ornament, with Jesus listens for Advent and Christmas. This inspirational Christmas devotional includes prayers that are perfect for the season, plus scripture verses, alongside
0:21.8	heartwarming illustrations.
0:24.1	And it makes a treasured gift for anyone on your list.
0:28.0	Jesus listens for Advent and Christmas is available at your favorite retailer.
0:35.7	God really does set a table for us in the presence of our enemies, because what greater
0:42.2	enemy is there than death? And here we are feasting and laughing and making jokes, not in spite of
0:50.0	the fact of loss and grief and death, but in the very face of it, because we knew how the story
0:55.8	would end, and death would be defeated once and for all, and every tear would be wiped from our eyes.
1:02.5	Welcome to the Jesus Calling podcast. As we enter the season of Advent and Christmas,
1:07.7	we're bound to be overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. But when we set time aside to properly prepare our hearts to honor the birth of Jesus,
1:15.4	the experience of Christmas can take on a whole new meaning, becoming a season of hope, rest, and renewal.
1:21.4	For this special holiday bonus episode, we're joined by Linear, Ivester, a writer and homemaker who's taken time-honored holiday traditions and shaped and molded them to fit her family, keeping restful intentionality at the center of it all.
1:35.9	Linear shows how to let go of what doesn't serve your soul, how to embrace the imperfection that makes gathering with our communities more authentic and real, and how to find glimmers of
1:44.8	joy when you're celebrating Christmas with a grieving heart. My name is Lanier Ivister. I am a writer
1:53.5	and a homemaker in the beautiful state of Georgia where my husband, Philip, and I maintain a small farm and an 1850s home place, a special
2:05.3	old house named the Ruff House. It is a very special place to live. I really enjoy gardening
2:12.1	and we have a number of farm animals and it's very much a character in my story.
2:23.4	I have always loved Christmas, self-defined Christmas enthusiast, and a huge part of that is
2:31.1	owing to the fact that Christmas and the home that I grew up in was always
2:36.1	very simple, always very special, and always very sacred.
2:40.7	Even before my parents were Christians, my mother was very intentional about making it a time
2:48.4	for family and kind of quieting a lot of the outside noise. And when my parents
	...

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