Advent is supposed to be a time of preparation for Christmas. We are launching a 4-week series to look at the four themes of advent, hope, peace, joy & love. But we aren't just sticking with the easy, fluffy parts of these emotions. We're diving deep into the complexities of heaviness. This week we are tackling hope. Hope is born out of struggle and tested in the face of difficulties, and hope can sometimes seem elusive. So, come along on this journey of hope, struggle, and unity. We can't wait for you to join us.
The book we referenced, Jotham's Journey, is highly recommended for family advent devotionals for kids ages 6 and up. (ish depending on your kid)
Advent is supposed to be a time of preparation for Christmas. We are launching a 4-week series to look at the four themes of advent, hope, peace, joy & love. But we aren't just sticking with the easy, fluffy parts of these emotions. We're diving deep into the complexities of heaviness. This week we are tackling hope. Hope is born out of struggle and tested in the face of difficulties, and hope can sometimes seem elusive. So, come along on this journey of hope, struggle, and unity. We can't wait for you to join us.
The book we referenced, Jotham's Journey, is highly recommended for family advent devotionals for kids ages 6 and up. (ish depending on your kid)
Welcome to the Still Becoming One podcast.
Kate Aldrich:We are Brad and Kate and our more than 20 years of marriage. We've survived both dark times and experienced restoration.
Brad Aldrich:Now as a licensed marriage counselor and relationship coaches. We help couples to regain hope and joy.
Kate Aldrich:We invite you to journey with us, as we are Still Becoming One.
Brad Aldrich:Let's start the conversation. Hello everyone, welcome back to Still Becoming One.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, welcome back.
Brad Aldrich:We are really glad that you are back and we're hoping that you had a great week With. Thanksgiving yeah, holiday yeah, but also probably recognizing.
Kate Aldrich:For a lot of people it was a rough week.
Brad Aldrich:It was a hard week, and now we're leading into Christmas. That's what we're gonna spend a little bit of time today talking about and yeah, it's hard. A lot of times it's hard. We always talk about in our coaching side of our world that this time gets really busy Really and it's good stuff, right it's people that we've worked with for a long time.
Brad Aldrich:that go, you know what? I'm gonna be hanging out with my parents, or I'm gonna, you know, or I'm missing my parents and I just really feel like I just need to talk again. You know, for a session or two, yeah, is what I get, a lot of and it just kind of fills in all the little spaces in my schedule.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, I haven't been doing this as long. I don't feel like I get that yet, but I get people who we might be doing work on something else where we have to spend some time on how the holidays impact their story and whatnot. Yeah. So we kind of take little side detours and talk about some of it.
Brad Aldrich:Yep, it is hard and heavy and beautiful at the same time and we want to remember that draw, that pull, that we want to experience the joy and excitement of this season and what it's supposed to be. And yet we have to recognize that for all of us, honestly, there is some heavy to it, as well, yeah, yeah.
Kate Aldrich:I mean, I have always, as a child, like I have always loved this season and as an adult, I just love the thought of Advent and of preparing your heart for the coming of Jesus. Right, and we are not in the space where we are living, where he is coming for the first time and being born, but we celebrate that and we are preparing our hearts for his second coming.
Brad Aldrich:Right.
Kate Aldrich:You know, and so I see this season as a season of light and a season of hope. But I also recognize and we live in our own lives the messy of it's not just that.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, absolutely it's not, and that's why we wanted to do a little bit of a series on Advent, and Advent is really the celebration, the preparedness for the Christmas season, right, so the word Advent actually means coming from Latin and it is this period of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, and it's something that I think you started our family doing really a long time ago, when our kids were really young.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, yeah. I don't remember how it all evolved or whatnot, but we ended up finding a series of books that we did with our kids when they were not super tiny, because the stories are actually full of them some angst and some like what? Was sort of my intention. Tension tension, yeah. And so I don't know, like seven-ish age, we started doing them with them and it became just something our kids loved and we really did them up until a couple of years ago.
Brad Aldrich:And our 17-year-old asked to do them again this year.
Kate Aldrich:Right, right and they kind of went by the wayside. When we added another kiddo who wasn't a part of that tradition, it was hard. It was hard for everybody and the kids were also. We had some leaving for college, like. So it naturally kind of ended. But our 17-year-old this year said can you me and dad just read this, because she just wants to do that connection and spend that time that we did for years. And so we're gonna read one again.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, so we're gonna link the series in the show notes just so if anyone wants to find them on Amazon or anywhere. The series that we found was called Jotham's Journey. It's a storybook for Advent and there's actually four different books that go through the Advent series, yep, and they're basically a fictional story of some kids who happen upon parts of the story through the biblical story of the coming of Jesus Right.
Kate Aldrich:And I love them because, well, we said, there's tension and there's sort of a bad guy and he goes through all of them. They all get to meet the bad guy, but also they show the messy, right. They show that everyone in these stories is waiting, anticipating and needs a savior and yet there are parts of their life while they're looking for that light, searching for that light and then actually seeing that, also living in the messy of heartache and sin and trauma and all of these things. And I think it really does bring into perspective how we are living that out in this season of life in general. But when we focus on it in the Advent season, I think it can help us to understand both that tension line we live on of Jesus has come and yet we don't live with him in heaven yet, and so there is that tension, right, there's tension.
Brad Aldrich:And I think it's one of the things that I recognized. I think this season church, everyone kind of tells you hey, we just have to be happy, we have to celebrate. And it misses out on some of that tension.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah for sure, so that's kind of what we wanted to do over the next four weeks, as maybe you're preparing for the holidays is actually talk a little bit, in a way of presenting Advent, of the tension between the happy and the joy filled and the positive and, somewhere, of where we are that sometimes the hard and the heavy is where we're at right now even in our marriages, in our relationships at times.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, and kind of, I guess in some ways, just to sum everything up is to go you know it's okay, right, wherever you're at if it's really heavy and hard, or you're at that other side looking back and going okay, this is really good and I can maintain this emotion, this positive. Either way, I think there's some things for us to learn, sure.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and I do think that, as I said, like, this is life right and there are going to be times you look back on Christmas memories and they're really good and some are really hard, and then most, I think, are just a mix of the two, of the light and the life and the hope, and then the hard, the tension, the trauma, the all the different things. It just is a very complicated and complex time that is reflective of the rest of our lives.
Brad Aldrich:Absolutely.
Kate Aldrich:So, yeah but I think it's a great time for us to focus on it in a different way. I don't know, I've just. I didn't actually grow up in a family that went to church consistently, and yet we would tend to go around Christmas time and I remember the advent tradition that the church would do every week, and I don't know, there was just this like desire to prepare. You know, the Lord was already working in my heart and it just became something that has been solidified in me of every year, whether the rest of my family joins me or not, I really do like to spend time focusing on the coming right the anticipation, the how do I wrestle with the tension of that and the mess in my life, because it's not just one thing right it's not, yeah, so I don't know.
Kate Aldrich:It's always been something that's very special to me and, yeah, I don't know what your experience was as a kid. I'm sure probably your church actually did the. Yeah, every week advent thing, which I don't think church is necessarily do anymore.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, I mean we did growing up and and would I remember lighting candles and all those kind of things that were about you know a theme for the week, but I can't really remember it Influencing me or making me go Okay, what is this really about? Or or why is this? It's more just. I think as a kid it was a countdown to Christmas.
Kate Aldrich:Well, I won't deny, as a kid there was that aspect right Every Sunday, were we're lighting another candle, we're checking off another week. I mean I think that's something to like. It's real kids look forward to it. Because American tradition Isn't just about celebrating the coming. We, we have the gift, gifts and traditions and all of that, and so it does make it about that. But I don't know. It just always felt and meant something much deeper to me. But I remember thinking for a long time I didn't really have the space to share that with anyone and I didn't have anyone who could really hold it with me well.
Kate Aldrich:So I think I just kept it sort of tucked inside. But yeah, so Right. So, going through the different weeks there, I guess it is the church that has formed the theme, sure, so over the centuries.
Brad Aldrich:There is four different themes that have developed that, basically, are four different emotions that we can pay attention to and and look at, and it basically goes into hope, peace, joy and Love. Okay, and all of these sound really good and happy, and yet I think what we're gonna look at over the next couple of weeks is as we look at these emotions, as we look at what's going on in them. There's a whole lot more happening in all of these happy emotions than is at the surface. Yeah so we're gonna talk about hope I.
Kate Aldrich:Feel like hope is the hardest, because hope is the lifeline we all need and yet it is hope that is devastating many times. Right, because we hope for so many things in life and that doesn't. It's not, it's not a guarantee, right? Right now will be easy, or I think hope is just such a Hard emotion.
Brad Aldrich:Well, by definition, it means you're looking for change. Mm-hmm, right yeah you're. You're seeing a vision of what you Want to be different. Mm-hmm and holding on to the energy that it could get there.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, so much of our lives here because of our separation from God. You know, jesus bridges that gap, but because we aren't in Eden with him anymore, which is what we were designed for, what God hoped for, we Right, we have to live in that tension of the hope of being with him again, the knowledge that we will and that that will. It will make all of this mess not mess anymore, will be order and it will be peace and joy and love and all of those things. But that's not where we live.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I love this definition. Bernay Brown Says hope is a function of struggle. We develop hope not during the easy or the comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort. Hmm hope is forged when our goals, pathways and agencies are tested. Mm-hmm and when change is actually possible. Yeah, yeah and I really encouraged anyone to think through that's maybe feeling a little Hopeless right now.
Brad Aldrich:Especially in their area of their marriage, right. It's sometimes it's hard right when our agency which that means my ability to make changes, so when that is tested in something like a marriage relationship, I can't change my spouse right, and so when that's there, it is Sometimes difficult to hold on to hope. Mm-hmm when, and believe that change is actually possible.
Kate Aldrich:Right, and I think that's indicative of so much life. As you said, absolutely marriage and we talk all the time about you can't change your spouse.
Kate Aldrich:You're the only one you can change, and that actually Spills over into every relationship you have that's exactly, and I think that's when we can experience hopelessness because we can't control the other person and there are pieces that are theirs to work on. It feels hopeless, right. Or when we realize there's nothing else that can be done in a situation. It brings that sense of like do it, how do I still hang on to hope when there's nothing Right that I can do. That impacts it differently. You've, you know, you've been working on it, you're trying it, you're trying to do differently, but right, right, that sense of hopelessness can be overwhelming.
Brad Aldrich:It can so quickly and it is one of the things that I am kind of always looking for and people that I'm working with is do they Reach that point where they put up their hands and they go? What's the point? In more. What like. Why am I continuing to fight for the marriage? Why? Am I you know working towards somebody? Yeah, because we're reaching that place where it doesn't feel like change is possible. Mm-hmm. That's.
Kate Aldrich:That's a moment of grief it is and it's big and and I will say We've experienced that in our life and our family in different areas, and it is, it is a deep ache.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah it is all encompassing and, at the same time, I want to say if you're going through a hard time, it is not unusual to hit that point. Mm-hmm to feel like it's impossible, to feel like nothing is going to make it better. Mm-hmm. And slow down and breathe and you know, 24 hours or a week later, sometimes a little pieces of hope come back.
Kate Aldrich:Sure, sure, and and remembering that when it's hopeless, like but God, there is Jesus, like there's always work that can be done outside of what we can control and do, and that's hard for us because you know it's help. It's helpful for us to be able to control it and do something, and there are times we do have to rest in the hope that only Jesus can provide, which is what you know people were doing Before Christ came of. Just like you know, god is promising these things. How is this going to come about? Sure.
Kate Aldrich:Obviously, he gave us, you know, he told us things in the word of what it would look like, but our understanding of it was Not complete and so, yeah, we're hoping for what he brings and what he can do, and sometimes that's all we have left in situations.
Brad Aldrich:Sure sure. So I think one of my things I would love you to get out of this is if you feel like there's a heaviness in your relationship right now, mm-hmm. If you feel like there's a place where you're feeling very stuck, mm-hmm is. This is a, this is the experience of hope. Right and I know we put those that positive emotion with that heaviness doesn't seem to fit, but it really is our learning how to Continue to move towards something that's hard and something that's different.
Brad Aldrich:Mm-hmm and If we have hope Right, if we can really gain that place of, I do believe that changes Actually possible. Mm-hmm that can motivate us enough to say, okay, what's my part. Right to do that. When we get into that place of there is no hope, we get very much into self-protective mode and we can just put up our walls and Say, well, there's no hope. So what's the point?
Brad Aldrich:and I'm just gonna end up, you know, Building my stone wall which just goes along with their stone wall and and both of us kind of end in that same place.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, that's good. I Do think you said like it feels weird to put the two emotions together. I wonder for some people how much it adds clarity and a Space for you to actually feel the tension and acknowledge the tension, because you're already feeling it actually. Yeah right. Yeah, and, and you're not wrong. When hope is feels lost, we do go to our natural tendencies to protect.
Brad Aldrich:Right, yes, protect, and that's a good word, because you know, the other day I was talking with somebody a little bit about this theme and you know they talked about how their pastor had actually, you know, heard some of the struggle that they were having in their marriage and the pastor's answer was you just need to hope in the Lord and like kind of patch them up and move them on. And the answer really that they heard was I guess I'm not strong enough. I don't have enough faith.
Brad Aldrich:I need to pray harder. I need to you know if I was better then, somehow things would be better. Is really what that relatively spiritually abusive answer was.
Kate Aldrich:Well, yeah, it's definitely harmful, and I think it comes from a place of not knowing how else to help someone. So I don't think it comes from a place of maliciousness, but, as we know, when harm happens, intent doesn't really matter. That's right. But I think he's not. The challenge with that answer is they're not wrong.
Brad Aldrich:No, exactly they're not wrong, but it's not talking about the heaviness that hope actually is. That we can be in the midst of tears, in the midst of struggle, in the midst of hurt and have hope. In fact, that's what hope is.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, I think it's not giving space for the hard. It's just let me point you to the end answer that we all know is true. It's why we have Christmas, it's why Jesus came. He is the hope, he is the rescuer. He does make this all different and better and good, but we need to remember we live in Saturday right. Friday has already happened and so has Sunday, but we don't live in the space of Sunday.
Brad Aldrich:Okay, explain that a little bit.
Kate Aldrich:Well, Jesus was killed for us, was resurrected on Sunday, but we are not fully with him. He is fully with us, but we don't live in heaven yet.
Brad Aldrich:We live in this place where there is deep brokenness, when he's dead but has not risen in that middle ground Right.
Kate Aldrich:Yes but no. That's the paradox. But.
Brad Aldrich:I think that moment right. And then in that saying of, okay, friday happened, sunday hasn't yet of like Sunday's coming. Like looking at the disciples, looking at like what happened to them in that day between where they were waiting and not all of them were right. I want to just emphasize not all of them were waiting. We have Peter who kind of went off by himself because he was really dejected and Well, that doesn't mean he wasn't waiting, he just wasn't waiting with the group and yeah.
Kate Aldrich:Doing the same thing.
Brad Aldrich:I think he was feeling relatively lost, but there's a whole different story in there, right?
Kate Aldrich:But I think it's important to mention that, because each one of them was having a different experience based on their story, how they interacted with Jesus. Like it is actually a beautiful picture of us as humanity, yeah.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, and the heaviness of hope, right Like. So I would just love to say, like if this Christmas your hope is coming through tears, your hope is coming through asking for change. Your hope is coming through saying how can we do this different. That's healthy hope.
Kate Aldrich:Right, I love what you just said, like maybe spending some time sitting and contemplating what Saturday looked like for the disciples right, and other people who were following Jesus if they had heard the news, but specifically the disciples Like there is a lot in that space of Saturday that's where we live and so just contemplating what that was like for them. How is this going to work out? This isn't what we thought was going to happen. Right.
Kate Aldrich:There's a lot of conflicting, complex emotions, and we know what Jesus told us, but the reality of what we've experienced and what we see right now is not what we thought it would be.
Brad Aldrich:Yeah, no, absolutely and.
Kate Aldrich:Gosh, how many times have we thought that in marriage and in relationships?
Brad Aldrich:Right, this is not what I thought. This is not where I thought we were going to be. This is not meeting my expectations. We have this sense of grief over that loss. And then you know we have to wrestle with. What does this mean? This is hard, it is hard.
Brad Aldrich:And you know, this is what we end up talking with people all the time about is how do you make moves towards each other that lead us to feelings, more feelings of positive hope. But it is through the struggle that we get there. Yeah, you know and so I hope that. I hope that you recognize some places that you may be struggling and don't feel bad about them. That would be my biggest takeaway from this Like, if you're struggling, that still means that you have hope.
Kate Aldrich:So kindness towards the fact that you're struggling. That doesn't mean your struggle is because we need to be careful. It doesn't mean if it's impacting someone else in a really severely negative way it doesn't make it okay. But kindness to the struggle and understanding that, like that, is part of this tension.
Brad Aldrich:Sure, and I'm meaning like, hey, we're trying to make things better. I'm struggling with where we are at right now. I'm struggling, you know, and just keeping that idea of we're on a journey. Right. You know, we have named our podcast still becoming one, really because we believe that marriage is a journey where we are in the process of connecting and becoming one together.
Kate Aldrich:Yeah, I think the still becoming one speaks to the Saturday Right.
Brad Aldrich:That's exactly right.
Kate Aldrich:It is not finished and yet in many ways you know, we know that Jesus has done all the work and we are finished. But there is this time on earth and it will continue to be an anticipation of the coming and a sitting in the reality of it's already happened and just all of the complexities that that brings to our lives. I think also, like I would love, for all of our listeners out there to think about what could this Advent season look like as we go through it, the themes, with everyone. What could it look like? What could, how could you focus on the coming with also holding space for the joy and the fun of this season, the light, the laughter and the tears and the hard, because they're both present. And so you know, we, as we said, we've done the series with our kids. I personally, for years have done.
Kate Aldrich:And Voskamp's the greatest gift book. I love that book and it always speaks to me of the complexities, of the hope and of the messy. She's very poetic in her writing. I'm sure you all, many of you, are familiar with her and I do find other things she writes hard for me to stay on track with and track with her. But these are short and I just find that they just speak to my heart so much. But there's so many other resources out there and you don't even have to do a resource, but just something intentional as we prepare our hearts Once again every year for the hope of the world being born, coming down as a baby and joining humanity.
Brad Aldrich:So we're going to spend the next couple of weeks walking along with you in what that maybe preparation looks like and encouraging you to think through some of these emotions with us. So we'll be looking at what is? What does hope mean? Obviously, but then next week we'll look at peace. And what does that really hard emotion of peace look like. What does it?
Brad Aldrich:take to get there, and both in the small and in the large. And so we'll take a look at that and then look at the again hard emotion of joy and where that's coming from. And yeah, I know that doesn't sound like it's hard, but I think it can be very, very difficult, absolutely. And then we'll spend some time looking at love and what that means, and how do we recognize it and use it in a healthy way in our marriage right.
Brad Aldrich:And feel not just love for each other, but also love from our father and what that means as well.
Kate Aldrich:Well, and I think you just said and feel it All of these are emotions and we can feel them. There are also times we can walk in them even when we don't feel them, and I think that is what we see happening is people are waiting, waiting for God to do something, right, like we believe he's going to do something. We don't know what it's going to be and I'm sure the emotions of that went away or ebbed and flowed often. Often, yeah, but they hung on to the hope and yeah, so I would. Just, what does hope mean to you? I think it's a great question as couples, to actually talk about. What is the time in your life where you were really hopeful? What was the time in your life where hope seemed gone, seemed gone?
Brad Aldrich:Seemed gone and even continue in the conversation that we had in last podcast of where are your hopes for the future and how do we hold on to some of those together. So we hope that that is a conversation that you guys can have and enjoy together as you're preparing for this Christmas season, and that you continue on your journey of still becoming one. So until next time, I'm Brad Aldrich.
Kate Aldrich:And I'm Keith Aldrich. Be kind and take care of each other.
Brad Aldrich:Still Becoming One is a production of Aldrich Ministries. For more information about Brad and Kate's coaching ministry courses and speaking opportunities, you can find us at aldrichministriescom For podcast show notes and links to resources in all of our social media. Be sure to visit us at stillbecomingonecom and don't forget to like this episode wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow us to continue your journey on Still Becoming One.