What to Do When Your Advent (and Life in General) Doesn’t Go as Planned

So it’s been almost a month since I said my temporary goodbyes here on the blog. I didn’t think that the “renovation” process here would take so long but — as it says in the title of this post — sometimes life doesn’t go the way we planned it. (And yes, we’re still not done with the process, as you can see!)

This Advent season has not been going the way I planned it either. Admittedly, with this pregnancy slowing me down (just a teeny, tiny bit!) and with all the other things on my plate, I didn’t have “grand” plans for Advent this year. This was the most I could do actually:

• Set up our Nativity set (one of a few; the others are still in storage! Ha!)
• Buy a ready-made Advent Wreath (FINALLY! After years of wanting to do so!)
• Buy an Advent Wreath / Christmas Prayers Devotional Booklet (Also after years of looking for a nice one!)
• Look for our “The Story of Christmas” Advent Calendar and Storybook Set
• Look for our copy of “Jotham’s Journey”
• Set up our Jesse Tree
• Set up our image of Baby Jesus (and hide Jesus so the kids can look for him on Christmas Day!)

I did all of this the night before Advent began! 🙂 Talk about photo-finish preparations! I’m grateful to God that I was able to do so though.

Admittedly, we haven’t been able to do our Jesse Tree and Advent Wreath devotions consistently… we missed a few nights for different reasons. But instead of hanging on to feelings of guilt over it (which I would normally do on any given day), I have chosen to just.let.it.go.

Which brings me to the point of this post. 😉

When your Advent — or, like I said, life in general — doesn’t go the way you planned it to, that’s what you should do:

Let it go.

Let go and let God take over.

So many good things can happen if you do. Just as it says in this quote:

(Yeah, I should remind myself of this, because I haven’t been letting go and letting Him move lately — which means I have been SO stressed out over so many things!)

So there… my two cents’ worth for all of us this Fourth Sunday of Advent. Christmas is just DAYS away, and instead of beating myself up for all the things I haven’t been able to do, I think I will just do my best to savor these moments. Like I said in the , I don’t want to forget “the better part”:

Let’s ask God to make our hearts His home this Christmas… and beyond! Praying you and your loved ones have a truly rich and blessed, truly bright and beautiful Christmas season ahead! 🙂