Advent, Waiting, and the Slow Work of Becoming Whole

Advent draws us into a kind of waiting that’s active, hopeful, and deeply human. In this episode, we explore how holy waiting mirrors the slow, interior work of healing — in ourselves, in our relationships, and within our families.

We share how waiting became a core part of our own story: navigating old patterns, living in the tension of the “not yet,” and learning to trust that God works in hidden places long before change becomes visible.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Advent teaches us about waiting with expectation
• The difference between holy waiting and passive endurance
• Why healing unfolds slowly and why that’s aligned with Catholic anthropology
• What is and isn’t worth waiting for in your own healing
• How to stay grounded when transformation feels delayed

Referenced:

Shadow & Light Advent Reflection: https://www.tshoxenreider.com/advent

Advent Calendar: https://shopstoryofthislife.com/

If the waiting in your own life has been stirring things up…
We’d love to walk with you. Join us for our upcoming webinar where we’ll explore how to disentangle from family-of-origin patterns without cutting people off or losing yourself. Save your free seat at the link below:

https://unmeshed.online/webinar-registration-page

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello and welcome to Living the Third Way. We are your hosts, Shay and Adrian, and this episode is coming to you probably about a week into the season of Advent. And I don't know about you all, but I am tired. How are you feeling, Adrian?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yep, uh, just about the same. Um, I think on on top of everything, I've got me a little very slowly recovering back. And um, the upside is is I I think I finally got my first full night of sleep in about close to two weeks without either a baby or a little bit of a little bit of backache uh didn't wake me up. So you know what? I'm I'm fresh and ready to go, at least according to this new new standard. But um but yeah, so for all of you out there, stressed, tired, whatever it is, somewhere in the middle, or right there with you, and and happy to be here, imperfect as this as this pod might be, we're just gonna we're just gonna bring it as we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Not much else we can do. Um, yeah, so between sleep deprivation from a teething one-year-old and just the busyness of the season itself, tired. Tired is how I feel tired is how we feel, you know, as as mentors and even just living our own life, we know that the tiredness doesn't just come from all of the holiday shopping or the sleep deprivation or recovering from back injuries, but this season requires a lot of work from us emotionally. You know, there's a lot of events, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of relationships, there's a lot of family gatherings, and it can be a lot. It is often the case that these sorts of events actually cause us to confront some of the pain and suffering and woundedness that we've probably spent a long time waiting to heal from. In our experience, and even in the people that we walk with and mentor, we realize, you know, it is these moments, it is these encounters that we're really faced with this choice. You know, will we continue to just wait purposelessly, meaninglessly, and suffering for somebody to fix the way that they hurt us and wounded us, or for the person that hurt us to say the right thing or do the right thing and make it all better, which is, by the way, understandable, an understandable desire to have. Or will we wait for the healing that we desire? Will we wait for the connection and the the promise that was given to us while we actively do the work to try and improve our own circumstances, to try and mature our own heart, to grow in our own capacity? I think we're faced with that choice in these moments. It's not always an easy choice. But I think there is beauty in this season of Advent. You know, the church doesn't just celebrate Christmas, right? It doesn't just celebrate the event, you know, where new life was born into a dark world and a place of woundedness. It also gives us this season of really, really being an intention and intentionally entering into the darkness.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

If we were to give this a title, and we obviously have, right, because we need a title, uh, it will be, would be, and is called an advent. Waiting and the slow work of becoming whole.

unknown 3:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

We want to talk about the spiritual aspect of it, and we want to just give you a high-level, high-level view first. Advent is it's an annual reminder that God does his best work in the spaces that we cannot rush. Suggestation, waiting, longing, becoming Okay. Let's make it a little bit more relatable. I mean, everything for training for a race, you know, learning your new skill, maybe you took up knitting or thinking about it. Or what resonates for me particularly, right, is g cooking a a wonderful meal, right? That doesn't happen instantly. You know, one of the greatest gifts that we that we have as human beings is is time. We get to actually experience a process, you know, see things again for me with the food, right? The beauty of individual ingredients and where they came from and who produced them and who made them and what they're all about and how they interact with the soil. Like all of that is experienced through time and more depth. So we get to have that process in time. Time is an essential factor, but it's not just the only one. You know, just like those other examples, um if time isn't combined with some active level of participation, then we're just we're just passengers, and that just isn't enough. And healing isn't any different. And ultimately, like Advent is such a great invitation into that. And so Advent gives us a blueprint of how to actively combine that gift of time and the human will and then to align ourselves. Okay, before we pivot into our next part, uh quick question for everyone here, including Shay. I'm just dying to try to understand. Why is it that after a baby is born, after a baby is born, the mother is ravenous and the baby is super hungry? How is that possible when they just ate? Okay.

unknown 5:59

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Well, um, there you guys have it. Adrian has not shown this part of himself so far on the podcast, but we have a bit of a comedian on our hands.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I intend to have fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

That's good. We need it. We need it. Okay, back to our scheduled material. Advent. Okay. Advent is a season bordered around holy expectation, right? We are expectantly waiting, eagerly waiting, the incarnation of God, you know, God become man entering into our humanity, our life to allow us to be born again. Whoa. Okay. Advent is ordered around holy expectation, not passivity. I think Advent is largely one of the most misunderstood seasons in the church. And even in my own experience, you know, I attest, like I only recently have really entered into the beauty and the necessity and actually living Advent well. Still a work in progress in that regard, but the misunderstanding that people have. Most people imagine Advent as this like gentle waiting room where Christmas music, we're single the lights. We are, you know, we're already having our holiday parties, right? Like perhaps seeing it as just this spiritual holding pattern until Christmas arrives and the big event, and then we're done, right? But Advent is not passive. Advent is not a season of just twiddling our thumbs while God does something out there. It's not waiting at the airport terminal. In fact, it's actually more like the entire process of preparing for the trip. It's packing your bags, making the itinerary, you know, everything that you need to do in order to make that trip wonderful. So many of us approach Advent like we just do whatever we need in order to prepare the dinner or buy the presents or do all the practical things. And then maybe if we have enough energy in us on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, we'll find a way to acknowledge God made man, the birth of Christ. But actually, we can still do all the things that we do in preparation for the holiday. There's nothing wrong with the Christmas music or the decorations or the gifts. All of that's necessary too. All of that is preparing our hearts in a way, but we can also incorporate the holy expectation into the day today. And if you're not there yet, like me, I'm still very much working on figuring out what does that actually look like, then maybe we can just look at this as a chance to do things differently this year. Not perfectly, but differently.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

So if you do that, you'll actually enter into the rest of the Christmas season. Yeah. The rest of it, right? After the presents have been opened. After the fruitcake has been eaten, or if you're wise, you can tactically slide it in the trash. And you've washed the dishes, you've made the last airport run, whatever it is, um, things will be different. And you know, Christmas doesn't stop on the 26th or at midnight on the 25th, right? Christmas season doesn't end until the new year. So keep that in mind. And my challenge is also to keep your decorations up until the Christmas season ends.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I mean, ultimately, right, Advent is a season given to us so that we can actually clear the clutter of our mind and prepare our hearts and our minds and our spirits to actually receive the fullness of the joy that is the Christmas season. Advent is charged when you think of it like that. You know, when it's when the church is giving us the opportunity to actually enter into a darkness. Like that is charged. I think like even thinking about what we alluded to at the beginning of this period of like waiting maybe in our families for some healing to happen or you know, sitting in the suffering, like that is it is a heavy, charged time. It's thick with longing. And Advent is no different. Advent is a season where we touch, we touch that part of us that is longing for God, that is longing for eternity, that is longing for salvation, an awakening, and a preparation. It's a season ordered around that holy expectation. And it requires us to order our whole hearts and our wills toward what we are entering into, what we are about to receive, what our heart longs for at its core. And this waiting is an act of trust that God is actually working in these hidden places, that this isn't, we aren't in the darkness in vain, that something is actually going to happen, that something is happening. And the church invites us into this darkness, not to discourage us, but to train our hearts to hope. This isn't just a throwaway phrase. You know, waiting in hope is like a muscle that can be exercised and strengthened. It involves trust, acceptance, abandonment to providence, and a capacity that allows you to hold that God is God and man is man, and that his nature allows him to work within our humanity while still respecting our free will and our willingness to actually accept and receive him. This is beautiful, right? We know that God became man. We know that there's the resurrection intellectually, we know that. But Advent and what the church gives us is this opportunity to actually start embodying that emotionally, on like in our most human spaces, are the parts of us that don't know of the resurrection, that don't know of the incarnation, to bring those parts back into this place of being able to hope again. Right. And I think so many of us have lost that hope in our families. And this is an opportunity for us to just start learning that, relearning that in our bodies, that it is possible to hope. And so, yes, this idea parallels the process of healing so much. So many of us, like we'll say, want healing to happen, I don't know, yesterday. But the sooner we realize that it is much more complex and involves the wounds and the freedom of all of the people in our lives, the sooner we can appreciate that healing requires both our effort and our willingness to surrender and realign our expectations according to all of these factors in real time. You know, that it isn't just about us and our hearts and what we need, but it is all of these other people that are involved in the ways that we've been wounded too. That's hard. You'll feel pain. And you'll also feel breakthroughs, you'll be able to see more of the goodness that's happening when you uh open your eyes to recognize, you know, the the involvement of all of these other people in your lives. And then maybe you'll feel worse and you'll feel frustrated, and you'll feel the drawing effects of what can be versus what is. Maybe you you'll want to quit at some point, and maybe you'll slide back into the familiar, passive just getting through day-to-day, surviving. And at the same time, if you actively and trustingly stick with it, you'll begin to see how God slowly allows you to heal, but still exist in a world or even in a family that is so far from being on your page, so far from pursuing and living the way that you that you hope or that you long for, that you've been waiting for, so far from being perfect.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So, as Shay was talking about that, I was just thinking actually about parallel process in the best possible way. You do one thing, or like kind of like the karate, karate kid thing, wax on, wax off, but you're actually learning another skill. Or as I was thinking of a memorable friend of mine from high school who was a really good soccer player, but he also did a lot of ballet in doing the ballet, was really for the purpose of becoming a better soccer player, right? Think of this idea of just doing advent well, not just simply for the for the sake of obeying God, but for all of the skill that it provides you. All of the like the ballet did for the balance and muscle control and awareness, awareness of just the body and movement and how much that translates over into all of these other skills, and what a gift it is for us to have these things given to us. And look, it's very understandable that for both of us, in in one way or another, cradle Catholics, or anyway, cradle Christian, whatever, cradle evangelical, whatever, disillusioned version of yourself you might be or whatever, it is very easy to lose sight of this as just something that you do, right? But there is a purpose, there is a gift, and there is there are secondary, tertiary, whatever the next one is, benefits of doing all these things that prepare you not just for, and I say this realizing how silly this sounds, not just for Christmas or Christ, but but for everything else in your life that is that that he wants to be a part of, that he is a part of, but to open our eyes and to prepare us for that. So yeah. But we have been on every side of this. We have definitely launched into just the busyness of the past, you know, the busyness of the season, taking care of errands, spending forever making lists and checking them twice and all that nonsense. We did that. Definitely just wrapped up Advent that way. I've done plenty of half-hearted Advent reflections, maybe one one a week, two a week, none a week. I've I've done all that. I think there is something also to with the right disposition, realizing that God meets you where you are. Being reasonable and realistic in what you can do. So for example, in the previous year we reflected on what would be appropriate for us to do for Advent. And it's amazing how much more capacity you have with one child versus two. Um and so we discerned like what was something that was reasonable for us. So we got this book, I think it's called Shadow and Light. Shout out Tish Oxenrider for putting together a beautiful book that is very manageable and doable with just daily reflections and even a song that accompanies it. And we got so much out of it. And you know what? We set a realistic expectation, and I think we just about met it. It wasn't too long, it wasn't too short. That was the Goldilocks of Advent of Advent Reflections for us. And it was beautiful. So if you're just looking to ease into something, we're not we're not sponsored by any we're not sponsored by anyone, but we're not sponsored by by by this this product or anything. But I highly recommend it. We're something that is appropriate to you. And you know what? This year, we really had to sit in the face of what we are capable of doing and also the opp the unique opportunities that we've received in more children and less time. And actually, a gift came our way from grandma, and I don't actually know what it's called, so uh missed marketing opportunity, unless Shay knows Shay, do you know?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

I I think it's like the Great Advent Rescue box or something. Okay, but yeah, that's better than I don't remember.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Okay, yeah, that's better than the Advent box that I had that I had sort of jotted down in my notes. Um, so something like the Great Christmas Rescue, and it's really cool. It's just a it's like this big wooden box with 25 individual wooden boxes inside of it, and a guidebook, and an activity set, and within each one of those is a little figurine or something relevant to the Advent story, and every day you open it up with your kids, and your kids, your older one, tears the paper and throws it all over the ground and throws the figurines on the ground and then throws a fit because he wants to play with it, and you tell him, Oh, it's actually meant to be more symbolic. But then there's a little reading and a and a little explanation. And you know what? There's a beautiful opportunity to sit there and reflect for whatever moments you have.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah, and I think entering into Advent in a much more gentle and compassionate way towards ourselves and towards what we are and like knowing ourselves, knowing what we are and are not able to do, is such a, again, such a parallel to the process of healing. You know, the expectations we have of ourselves really color our ability to enter into our healing and to to honor and celebrate, you know, every step and every bit of progress well. This process of waiting, advent or healing, you know, whatever you're waiting for. It isn't the absence of the thing that you don't have yet. It's a preparation of your heart, your mind for what it is that you are waiting for. And I think that shift, you know, that shift of understanding, like what is this moment, what does this moment actually mean? I think that could change a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, so as as Shay was talking, I just was remembering a handful of things. And I think the big point that this revolves around is the e even the incarnation unfolded secretly, unbeknownst to just just a handful of people. And I I think even those people were figuring it out. Um, but nine months before anyone could see anything that was actually happening. So that what a testament to so sometimes things happen right in front of us that we don't understand, and yet if we trust, something beautiful can happen. I can't fully understand. I remember Was taking a salvation history class at the Augustine Institute back in the day. Shout out, Dr. Sri. What a shout-out so far. But I remember him hitting hitting us with this reflection about how our lives, our response or lack thereof to the to the divine, how this is still shaping both our lives and re and reality, but but reality as a whole for everyone that this is still really significant. And it's so easy to just get lost in like just this story. Yeah, there's the shepherds or whatever. Those scumbags are hanging out at the bottom of a mountain or whatever, and they heard they heard this. Look into that. That's an interesting, that's an interesting thing too. The lowest of the low, the shepherds were. And sometimes I feel the same way, right? These beautiful things are bestowed upon me, and I just I've heard it a hundred times. And that includes Advent too. Yeah, I've heard it a hundred times, but what am I missing? How much incredible transformation is there if I just change my disposition? And again, parallels healing. But I also can't help to think about the fact that all this was unfolding in history. It's not any different than it is now. Like families were in conflict, nations were falling and rising, life was busy, just in a different way. Probably blindingly overwhelming to people. And yet in the background, God was working and preparing and reaching out to humanity in the most intimate of ways. We're teasing a little bit on the incarnation here pretty heavily, and we'll talk more about that in our upcoming episode. But a little bit just to tease you a little farther, right? Humanity is designed for a process of maturation. The more we get to know Christ, the more we get to know ourselves. The more time we spend, the more actual, let's just say, progress we make. I mean, even Christ spends a considerable amount of time before entering into his ministry. And so I really think that this idea of honoring that and honoring the fact that things just need to unfold, but they also require something of us. Something like what we've talked about in the past. It's like we want to acknowledge our pain, we want to acknowledge these things, but we don't want to divest ourselves of the responsibility. We don't want to divest ourselves of the opportunity to to give and receive and properly act in love. And that is so essential to the healing process. It's just so easy to lose sight of that because whichever side of the culture you're on, or whichever side of 50 or 40 or whatever you're on, right, there can be a really different perspective on mental health. But you know what? Mental health is spiritual health. There isn't anything, any movement of the mind that isn't spiritual, and there isn't any spiritual movement that isn't psychological. It's not just for Gen Zers. It's not just for someone who just lost a loved one. You know, the word trauma isn't just for someone looking to get attention. It's for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, and I think, like we've already said, it's really easy to find yourself in a position of anxious waiting, like wanting, being frustrated even that that how am I still suffering? How like does God see me? Does he hear me? Is he coming? Like wanting to find healing already, you know, wanting that magic button, wanting it all to just go away. And I think that this period of Advent, you know, gives us, again, those eyes to see that God actually loves you more than that. That feels hard to say. And I think that there are periods of, you know, real suffering that like I want to honor hearing that feels hard. How could I be, you know, how could God love me and keep me in this suffering? But the truth is, you know, he wants you to have the opportunity to prepare your heart, to prepare your mind, to prepare your body, to prepare your spirit to actually be able to receive the goodness that he does have in store for you. The thing that it is you are waiting for, you know, we don't know what that looks like or when it's going to come, but he wants to enter into all of those places that have been wounded, all of those places that are still in darkness. And he wants to bring all of them into the light. So all of you can actually enter into that Christmas season, can actually enter into that healing. And we're struck by some of the stories around the nativity and the age, you know, the the age that some of these people, you know, were when Christ finally entered into their life, when they finally had that aha moment, that healing moment. So we kind of want to shout out to some of those who might find themselves in the second half of their life listening to us here today.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, so I I think of how many times we hear this um very understandable, very reasonably wounded reaction, sort of thing where, well, I'm this amount of years old. At this point, I am who I am. What's the point of even trying to heal? And you know what? I can relate to that because I remember even thinking that at 24. There's just no there's no turning this ship around, man. It's just going how it's going. Too late. I should have gotten, I should have gotten it right at 18 or whatever. And like I said, the next episode is about the incarnation, so we'll talk even more about the body and the significance of it at any age. But if you're older, if you have these these feelings that maybe things aren't how they should be, you're experiencing something profound or that some of this moves you. I also encourage people to look at how much the Lord has respected your freedom and your will. And yet you've had and continue to have all the time of your lifespan to align yourself to the Lord, but also to see and recognize where the pain is. And you've also seen and you've experienced more. You've seen people change, you have absolutely seen cultural changes. It's also easy to lose hope and feel like you're just on the outside of it. And yeah, like God allows it all for better or worse, but never, never violates our will. And I think it's easy to lose hope and get frustrated. But I will tell you this: if we're dining out fancy at some nice Italian place, and I'm looking at the menu, and all of a sudden the Lord were to just force me to order the pasta primavera or whatever, I would lose my mind. I don't want a God like that. I can't, I can't live in a world like that where I can't choose what I eat. My free will. I mean, it mat it matters even at just that most granular, silly level. Again, I'm here to introduce a little bit of levity, but God really respects our freedom, for better or worse, for us. And I also just think about how Advent happens every year. It's meant to be re-experienced. We're meant to be reminded of the Lord's approach toward us and that reminder that intimacy is a gift for every one of us, every year, every day. And we have that opportunity to realign ourselves with that deep love every single year. And even like that soccer and ballet reminder, right? As that skill and that muscle grows, it isn't just relegated to the Advent season. It just becomes deeper and more profound. If this wasn't for each of us as individuals, if it wasn't for us to heal and grow continuously, you know, maybe Advent would be just for the young, or something that only needed to be celebrated one time. I think about that oft-uttered phrase, right? Ah, the Christmas magic just ain't there without the kids. And granted, there is something amazing and beautiful about the excitement and the gifts. There is definitely something there. But I also have just experienced such a sadness at that. Like, oh, it's just whatever, it's just the day now. What a tragedy. Just so sad. But you know, you think of the you think of the biblical reality and the and the story of Advent, all of it. Like God is a part of people's lives no matter what. And they experience miracles no matter the age. Sarah and Abraham, Simeon meeting Christ at the end of his life and being able to die a happy man. The life of waiting is not wasted. And meeting Christ and finding healing at the end of life is doesn't discount anything. In fact, it just adds more glory to it. You know, God fulfills his promises at the right time, not at the speed of light. And there's also something really true about recognizing Christ requires interior preparation and skill and time and patience. And who better disposed to do that than people who have acquired a little bit of experience? We just uh, in whatever that that advent box is called, right, we just um unboxed Zechariah, who's giving Elizabeth a break by not being able to talk. What a thrill. And then Elizabeth finds out that they're gonna have a baby. John the Baptist is gonna show up, eating locusts and honey. I don't know how much they would have liked that. And Anna and the Anna the widow is at least somewhere in her 80s when she encounters Christ. And then I man, I just could keep going, right? Jacob became Israel as an older man, not a young buck. He didn't throw his hip out because he was old, he threw his hip out because he was an older man, but still wrestling with God. I'm sorry, that one wasn't a uh an advent-themed example, but I just, you know, I just I just want to preach it like I feel it.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah, but it's so true. Like I think there are so many examples from scripture that tell us like God isn't coming just for the young and able, you know, he's coming for all of us. And I think, yeah, Adrian, what you said there's is so true and so beautiful. I haven't thought about that. You know, people think Christmas is just for the kids. And goodness, yes, it is such a joy to see their faces light up, but shouldn't mine, you know, I think I'm like struck by that. Like, shouldn't my face light up with the same amount of joy realizing the promise of the deepest longing of my heart has been fulfilled. You know, kids open the gift, they're like, oh my gosh, it's what I always wanted. It's like, oh what? Like, Jesus is what I always wanted, and He came, and He's mine and He's yours. And wow, you know, the moments when we're actually able to feel that and and embody that. What if we could do that all of the time? And I think preparing our hearts, preparing our minds as if, you know, taking the se the season of Advent seriously is is how we can actually open ourselves up to that possibility. And so I think even in our work, you know, as mentors, you know, when we do work with people in the second half of life, you know, it's really incredible. We're so honored to be a part of, you know, really what is a countercultural movement that says, like, hey, you actually mean something. You actually matter. Your life, your health, your well-being, your ability to be present and real and show up in life and in your relationships matters. You know, this work that can restore your dignity as an elder rather than relegate you to a position that just views you as not valuable. There's a lot of woundedness in our culture, I think, around that. And I I love being able to be a part of a process in in their lives to say, like, actually, no, you still matter. You still have so much to offer.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

And no doubt Shay absolutely gets it because in our marriage, I consistently joke around that she's basically a 65-year-old woman. So this is particularly close to her heart. Um, but in but in in all sincerity, she does enjoy working with the elderly, and um I think it has a special place for them in her heart.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Adrienne's quite a jokester today.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Okay, but I definitely don't want to just keep talking about other people teasing Shay for her foibles. Yeah, we definitely want to talk about this idea of waiting in our own healing process. And so sharing just a little bit of mine. Back in the day, I had a um a mental health-related event and ended up being hospitalized. I do remember the very surreal process of moving past it and kind of encountering life just as regular life afterwards. And one thing that really stuck with me is speaking to someone, um, like a mental health advocate at my campus, was very clearly concerned for me and very very direct in what he was saying. And he did tell me, like, this is really hard. You're going through something, but I have to tell you, and you need to understand that time isn't gonna fix this. You gotta take care of yourself. And you know what? I hurt him, I took responsibility for my mental health, and within a year, everything was better. Just kidding, I didn't at all absolutely hurt him, and I absolutely did not listen, and I absolutely survived. A lot of time, a lot of distance, lots of new adventures, um, lots of distractions, and a whole lot of um papering over the cracks. But I got pretty good at surviving, and I got really good at not touching anything or doing anything different where I would encounter what was deeper inside of me. That was just not something I was willing, and probably to be more merciful to those parts of myself, not not something that I really knew how to do. But I tried to play the game as much as I could. You know, I I tried therapy for the first time, probably in my mid-30s, maybe early 20s, or late 20s, sorry. And I definitely went into it with a sense of, okay, I have to just try this, even if I just to my own self or to the people in my family who just say, Yeah, I did it, you know, I got that monkey off my back, and so guess what? It went nowhere, right? Um not much of an effort, not much of a follow-up, not much engagement. And it's very possible also that I just wasn't reached either. And so I think there is this sort of unspoken belief though, right, that if we push or force a change, nothing will happen. And I do think that there was an aspect of that, some of that approach. You have to do something about it. Um there was definite concern for me, but there was definitely this idea that I had that this this the onus was completely on me. And so I just took it in a different direction. You know, I just took it through a place of, okay, all right, well, if the onus is on me, then I'll just muscle through. Um, I'll find things to do. If I make more money, things will figure themselves out. And maybe if I study and get a master's in theology, then things will straighten themselves out. I'll change careers, then things will straighten themselves out. I'll do something meaningful, and things will just take care of themselves. And it just never quite was there. Like absolutely, especially now I know that the Lord was reaching out to me and absolutely respecting my freedom, but I was just really locked in. I was locked into this kind of mixed sense of rational, very male thinking, the the good and the bad side of it. Uh I definitely had a uh had a sense of fatalism, not quite um delirious Russian author, but but definitely had that sense. Uh and people said caring things to me, and there were people who meant well, and there were people who really loved me. But I didn't have a whole lot of experience in in accepting those things well. Um let alone really allowing myself to hear them. And you know, that kind of learning was unfamiliar, and I never really quite let myself get close enough to that point of vulnerability. So you know, how the heck was I supposed to receive it? And so yeah, if I felt control slipping, it was time to get out of a relationship. Uh and if I uh felt the need to, you know, be be close to someone, well then, you know, scratch the itch and jump into another one. And if I felt some level of wanderlust or or restlessness, then I'd I'd, you know, pick up a new hobby, do a triathlon, whatever it is. But whenever that sense of really encountering something close, really getting into that sense of vulnerability, uh, even you know, even letting God in, right, that just wasn't happening. Somewhat between my resistance and also because of my lack of comfort and lack of capacity. And yet all the while there were. I was making the smallest of moves toward God. And I actually would want to correct that and say I was actually responding very slowly to God's constant desire to be near me. And so I felt inklings, right? And I do think there is something, there was something very, I don't know what the grad school term is for advent-like, but let's just settle on advent-like. There was something very advent-like in that. God was still acting, God was still doing something, and I was just doing what I could in surviving. And it really wasn't until marriage that I really began to experience that that true sense of accompaniment and a really steady tethering an experience of like what it meant to be seen to be safe. Such an unmistakable sense of uh safety in that commitment of forever. And yeah, sometimes it feels like there's a threat of losing your liberty, right? But you also know that you've got someone who will always be there, who will always wait and always support you. What a beautiful model of something spiritually so real, but also something physical and tangible that that makes you feel safe. And it makes waiting and that slow, steady change that the Lord offers us, right? And experience in an embodied fashion through another. And that's been a large part of my experience, and I think it's probably been that way for both of us in a in various fashions.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yeah, I think you're touching on something really true, you know, that so much of our life, especially after we've been wounded, it makes sense to be turned outwards, to be vigilant for threats, to be vigilant for what else might hurt us, to to be protecting ourselves in that way. That the very idea of, you know, what Advent is proposing to us, which is to turn inward, to look at the dark places, to to slow down, to be curious, to prepare. Like that feels so risky because who then is looking outward for any threats that might come your way? Who then is being vigilant for you on your behalf? Right. So the idea, you know, that you're that your the mental health advocate at your college proposed is like, yeah, like I'm not surprised at all that in that at that time in your life, you're like, uh no, dude. I am like, I'm the only one looking out for me. I can't, I can't risk turning inward. I can't risk taking away my own protection and my own safety that I've created for myself. And I think that that's the case for, I mean, I know that that was the case for me and my healing. And I, and I think too, you know, what you're saying about marriage, like the the beauty of having the safety of a relationship where you're like, oh, actually, I can turn inward. It is safe. I can, I do have somebody else, you know, that's for me. I have somebody else that's on my team. Like there's a very real person, a real face in front of you that's that's providing that sense of safety for you. And I know that that isn't, that isn't always. The case for everyone, and that isn't always the case, even in our own marriage. There are times when we when our our wounds and our our protective parts act against each other, and we experience again that sense of like, oh, I have to protect myself. But I do think, like, little by little, as you open yourself up to safety in relationship, as you find somebody who's safe for you, you experience something new, and you develop the courage to do something new. And you realize there's space to hope for something better. And you fail daily, but you grow daily and you realize that change and redemption actually happen in a much different rhythm than you might have anticipated or thought it would look. And really, like everything changes, you know, scripture starts changing, it takes on a more meaningful and true context. It actually like it means something in your life. It isn't just this story, like pie in the sky story. It actually is a tangible thing that that colors that starts to color and take shape in your own story and your own experiences. And I think you'll hear us say it a million times, but this can only happen in the context of a relationship of Christ coming in the choosing the incarnation episode, but of Christ coming incarnate, you know, in the face of another person. And I think, okay, practically that's all it's all nice and true in the long term, in the more abstract reality of married life. But I think it's also important to realize, like in the early days of our marriage, or even as I said, like even still, you know, when we're in the trenches of sleep deprivation, like we are now, and back injuries and podcasting and all of the things that you know we've got going on in our life. Marriage, and I think all relationships, you know, if you're entering into them with intention, they have this way of exposing you. Exposing the ways that you're imperfect, the ways that you have yet to learn and understand about life and love and holiness. And all of a sudden, your experiences cease to be the only thing from which you can measure and understand what life means and where you're headed. Having somebody else witness like what is possible and what life could be is simultaneously beautiful and extremely painful because it reveals to you this hope that maybe like somewhere deep in your heart you've always wanted to know is true, that something else is possible, right alongside this proposal to have to do the hard work, to choose to do the hard work of unlearning and relearning a completely new way of being and operating in life and understanding relationships and understanding yourself. Marriage and relationships surface all of these wounds that you've gotten so good at keeping under wraps. All of these experiences and stories and narratives about yourself that you've learned to that you've shaped other stories around, you know, that you've made look pretty and you've they you've made it make sense in your life and in the way that you understand yourself and talk about yourself. And this provides you, you know, relationship provides you an opportunity to do something about them, to allow them to be transformed, or to stuff them down and allow them to continue festering. My marriage to Adrian, you know, I have had the opportunity to choose to wait actively in the face of, you know, my own woundedness, my brokenness, my imperfections, and participate in the slow work of taking up, you know, this peaceful sense of responsibility for my own healing, or I can wait passively and put all of the responsibility for my healing on those who I think have hurt me or who have hurt me. Let's be let's be real. Like I people have hurt me, and I I can wait for them to own up to it, to say sorry, to to make amends. I could do that. And I think there are still many ways and many parts of me that that do. And I, you know, I pray for I pray for those parts of me. I pray that they can see the light and the beauty and the goodness of of being able to take ownership and responsibility for who I'm becoming and who God has created me to be. I don't want to, you know, say that this is that this sort of hope for you know recognizing these things can only be can only happen in marriage. I think this can happen in all relationships, and it does very much so for me. And my relationship with my with my mentor and friends and family members and my spouse, yes. My children, yes. All of these relationships reveal the parts of me that the darker parts of me that need that I need to turn towards and enter into. And ultimately, I think, you know, what what I realized, what we've realized, and you know, what we hope you will realize too, is that it isn't actually true that you know, if we don't find a way to fix it immediately or stuff it down or act like it didn't happen or create a different story around it, that everything would just fall apart, you know, that we we wouldn't be happy or we couldn't actually live life. But that actually healing and transformation happens in this slow hidden interior work through the willingness to be obedient to just showing up every day, unafraid of taking seriously and facing your woundedness, your imperfection, your brokenness, the way that you can be ugly in relationship with your spouse, your family, or your dog. I don't know. Um, but just entering into that and not being afraid that it's something you need to hide or something you need to get rid of, but realizing like that's that's the place that Christ wants to bring, that's the dark place that Christ wants to bring the light to.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

And you know, as Shay says that I really think of when she mentioned family, uh the first place my mind goes is actually kids. Right now, the stage of life that we're in, we have young kids. And young kids have a beautiful capacity of discovering new behaviors. They also have a beautiful capacity of helping you discover old wounds, perhaps old behaviors in yourself that you thought were long gone, and reactions that you didn't think you had in you anymore because you dealt with them. And it turns out nope, that's still in there. And there is this desperation, and I have encountered it with people that I've worked with, and I've also worked with myself, and I've encountered it within my own self, that you have this feeling of, oh my gosh, this is never gonna change. My kid's never going to stop doing this, and I'll never be able to deal with it. Like, I got it, I gotta stop it right now. I gotta nip it in the bud. I've got to find the next technique, I've got to watch the next. Sorry, my wife has to watch the next Instagram videos about parenting and find and find out how to like deal with this thing. Otherwise, what's gonna happen in the future? And really, as she was saying, it struck me as like, oh, okay, Advent is let's try Adventine. That Adventine approach, I don't know if that's right, it feels right, is so helpful to that. And again, like we've all been children, we see children all the time. We know that nothing lasts forever, no behavior lasts forever, but man, oh man, in the moment, it feels like it will. And on some days as parents, like we really screw it up and we underdo it or we overdo it, usually overdo it, right? And then we come down hard on ourselves. Well, now what? But this urge to just fix it right away on your own is so strong. The urge to punish yourself or just to think that that all of this is on you is so strong, and yet it's so frustrating, even when I think of the people that I work with. It's so frustrating sometimes to hear, like, no, no, no, like you showing up every day with that hope and that confidence that something better is coming, that on the horizon there is a new thing, that this will end, and something good is possible. That's actually the key. Not just to getting like not just to getting through it, but to actually find find those ways that actually work and provide trust and love and reconciliation. And it can be so hard on both sides of it. It's something that we experience and it's something that we walk people through all the time. But there's something really beautiful in that quiet confidence and that disposition of hoping for something new. Alright, guys, well, before we leave you, we want to offer a little something practical, a little something that you can put into your stocking, open up a little early, no one will know, um, on the right track, and wrap your head around this idea of what waiting is and what it's not and how it can help us.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Yes, so here is your little early stocking stuffer. I think it's important to understand, especially in healing, it can it can often be confusing. Okay, like what am I waiting for? What does that look like? So we want to give you something practical. We've been talking a lot about, you know, what is advent? What is waiting? What does that look like in our life? But what can you take home? What can you take away from this? So I think waiting can often be misconstrued. Am I just sitting around and allowing myself to not strive for virtue? Am I just sitting around and allowing abuse to happen to me? And we want to be really clear that what we're talking about again, like we've said a lot so far in the podcast, is we want to embody an active form of waiting, not a passive form of waiting. What we understand waiting is, is waiting is an active trust. It is faith in the process. It is a belief that God is operating even when we don't see it. When we keep our gaze on him and we continue walking towards him and pursuing him, things will transform. When we are inviting grace into our lives, things will change. Waiting is staying attuned to your own interior life, maintaining an awareness of what hurts you, what excites you, what makes you anxious, and doing the work of discovering what you need in those moments to heal, to open yourself up to joy, to open yourself up to gratitude, to find relief from the pain, relief from the anxiety. Waiting is letting grace work in the places you can't see. Being attuned to your own interior life, but not understanding what to do, you know, inviting God in. He knows what to do, he knows you better than you know yourself. Allow grace to work in these places that you don't understand, that you can't see, and you don't know what to do with. Waiting is staying engaged without grasping or forcing outcomes. Can you persevere without trying to change or force anything that's outside of your control? But again, maintain that stance and that posture of looking inward and recognizing what is in your control. And waiting is holding hope without trying to control timelines. It's so understandable for you to want healing to happen now, for you to want peace to happen now, for you to want repair and forgiveness and an apology and understanding to happen even yesterday. That's all understandable. Waiting well is holding on to hope that there is a good that is in store for you, even if we don't know when that's going to come. What waiting is not, waiting is not, and this is really important. Waiting is not enduring abuse, it is not allowing harm to continue occurring and happening to you. Waiting is not staying in harmful patterns without boundaries. Waiting is not minimizing real harm for the sake of keeping everyone around you happy and not rocking the boat. Waiting is not assuming that time alone will heal the wounds. And waiting is not putting your humanity, your dignity, your worth on pause for someone else. We want to really, really drive that home. You know, we would never want to promote any sort of continued harm and abuse to happen to you. You know, if if what you're experiencing in your family is is abusive, is harmful, we want to give you the tools to wait well, not to wait passively, not to wait without any forward movement, without any action, or with continued harm, especially.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

So what I'd like to summarize here and give a personal example is the that it's really hard and that it takes work to just wrap your head around what you're doing and how you've been doing things. Because it's really challenging, particularly in the current climate, to discern between okay, well, what is harm? Is harm to someone doing something I don't like? Some people can define it that way. Is discomfort the same as harm? Probably not, and that requires some thought. You know, in my personal example, one of the things that I I really have taken away is that I've also been very impatient with myself and very willing to spiritualize certain dysfunctions, certain ways of being in relationship with someone close to me, and doing that very typical over-spiritualization thing like, oh yeah, well, the Lord suffered. I I need to suffer too. Like I need to be miserable, I need to just get over it. I need to just keep showing up, even if that means that it's unbearable to me. And you know, in some ways, a lot of those things that I did were very harmful both to me and to the relationship that I kept showing up for, but didn't do anything differently in. And it didn't help anyone. It didn't help me, and it didn't help the other person. And it took a lot of time, it took a lot of work to get all these things out there, to spill them all out, and realize that oh my gosh, I had this giant mess of a thing. You know, a lot of times we talk about these traumatic incidents and a relationship that it has so many of them in it. It's like having these file folders, right? And these file folders have the details of certain events and the way that you relate all in them. And the ones that constantly cause you to be hurt and insecure and dealing with whatever level of trauma, those folders are just some of them are really out of order, and other ones are like literally just scattered along the floor. And so many times when you're trying to do so much of this on your own or just waiting things out, you really don't know what you're doing. And if you find yourself in this place right now where you really don't know what you're doing, or you're starting to maybe realize that you've done some things wrong, you need so much mercy and you need someone to help you. And you also need someone to help you particularly to get to a point where you can be merciful toward yourself and realize how misguided you were. I spent so much time just escaping, surviving, avoiding, even when I was present, like physically present in the relationship, because I thought I just have to do it that way. And then realizing how many things, like how many years have passed where I could have been doing this so much better, where I could have done, I could have done this work with trust in God, with practical things, with guidance. And I just spent all these years disconnected from the other person, disconnected from myself, disconnected from the Lord, and just passive, and just desperately trying to hold some level of control and security in the relationship. My hope for you, both this Advent season and in the span of your life is that you learn that this takes time and that we need help in order to resolve that. But once we do, there can be so much relief and the waiting and the the being present to that sense of imperfection in you and in the other or other people or people in your family that you're struggling with. It's possible, it's manageable, it's possible to have moments of joy, it's possible to be hopeful and still be uncomfortable. And so that's that's kind of a guiding principle behind this path of the third way.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Yeah, so overall, you know, we would say that in Christian Catholic anthropology and understanding patience and waiting doesn't mean tolerating sin or dysfunction. What it means is trusting that transformation happens through cooperation with relationship and with grace, not through self-reliance, coercion, or force. And I think there are two sorts of extremes that we see often in our work and even in ourselves at times, which is this passive waiting that we've been talking about. If I just ignore it for long enough, eventually it will just go away. Eventually they'll change. Eventually, you know, it won't hurt anymore. Kind of this magical thinking that we all tend towards, you know, when we we have parts that are just so hurt and so desperate for something that we don't know, we don't know how to achieve and we don't know how to get. And then we also see this other extreme, you know, which is this sort of desperate control is often disguised as waiting. And this looks like if I just say the exact right perfect thing, or if I try really hard to be exactly what this person needs me to be, then maybe it can make everything better, right? If we're if I just get them to see the thing that they need to see, if I just get them to understand, if I can just keep coming at them, keep, you know, and it's not even like this, it's not even born out of a desire to attack anyone or to to come at them, you know, like I just said, it's more born at the out of this, this desperate need to find relief, to find resolve. And if I just get them to see, if I just get them to understand, maybe then everything will be better. So there's like this anxious waiting, and there's this passive waiting. The place where you actually find freedom, where you actually find healing, where you actually find relief, it is somewhere in the middle of those two things, you know, where you are acting, you are participating, you are taking up your responsibility, not in a desperate, forceful, controlling way, and not in a passive, we'll see what happens someday kind of way either. This sort of waiting requires us to show up with clarity and with boundaries. With compassion and show up with all of those things consistently, rooted in an understanding of who we are, rooted in an understanding of our dignity and our worth, all while letting God unfold the outcome outside of ourselves that we can't actually make happen ourselves. The last point we want to make here is like, what's actually worth waiting for? You know, you might be in a situation and wondering, like, is this ever gonna change? Like, what's the point of focusing on this? What's the point of thinking about this anymore? Like, what am I actually waiting for if nothing is gonna change?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

Right. So some of the things that you can really be looking for, what is possible, so that you even have just signposts or little little points of success and even the failure, what to look for, right? Are you experiencing any kind of maturity? Are you seeing things a little bit differently? Are you also willing to hold this dynamic of I can fail and be okay, I can succeed and be okay? And both of these things are just a natural part of being human, of being me. It's worth waiting for a semblance of interior freedom. And at first it's a semblance, maybe just a scrap, but these things grow. You also can't really acknowledge whether you're experiencing interior freedom if you never look into your interiority, and that is a scary place. But that is worth going to, it's worth waiting for the healing of your nervous system. And the nervous system gets healed as you actually face and address things and learn and have someone to guide you and practice with and to console you and to see you. All that only happens if you actually engage. It's worth waiting for parts of relationships that hold a lot of pain, or as I have experienced a lot in my in my own heart, like a lot of hardening, a lot of places where you're just not even willing to go, where you just have some experiences or some pain, someone said something to you. You build a wall around that and you just keep living. Every now and then you bump up against it, you get hurt, you get uncomfortable, but you just it's just not there. It is worth hoping and waiting for at those places to eventually break through. If they don't go away ever, they certainly will soften. That is worth waiting for. It's also worth waiting for breakthroughs or consolation, even if they're followed, or even what leads up to them is this long, boring slog of faithfulness. Whether that be prayer, uh journaling, reflection, uh spiritual exercise, whatever it is. Or you know what, even if it is just showing up as long as it's appropriate to a relationship that is uncomfortable, it is worth waiting for that. And lastly, I really can't attest to this personally too. It is worth waiting for grace to unfold in people around you. You'll be surprised by it and you'll have joy over it, but at the same time, you'll also have this sense of like, yeah, of course. Of course, this was going to happen. You're grateful. And that is worth waiting for. You know, what's not worth waiting for is for someone to just magically change without accountability. There are things relationally that you do that I do. It still takes some, you know, ging up of myself in order to be somewhat confrontational, sincerely confrontational, not like sharp, not passive aggressive, not mean or uh, you know, say the thing that needs needs to be said, but like in a joke. Not that. But genuine confrontation and statement of of how you feel. That, to me, sometimes still feels like, you know what, I'd rather jump out of the fourth floor of a building and take my chances. I would much rather and w so what? What what's a broken ankle in the grand scheme of things? It's not worth waiting for for someone to just change without you doing anything, without holding someone accountable, or even giving them the mercy and their their very real due of saying, hey, this is hurting me. It's amazing how many of us think that we should never have to say that. That's not worth waiting for. There's something you can do. It's not worth waiting for in the same vein, harm to stop without intervention. It won't go away on its own. It's not worth waiting for things that are chaotic to resolve themselves without fighting for some level of clarity. It's not worth waiting for for someone to suddenly become the person that you wish they were. And man, those of us who have family, how much is that the case when we hear and or we say? We say this is about people in our own families. If only they were. If only they would. If only they got it. I certainly have said it. It's not worth waiting for. And it's also not worth waiting for to receive permission or to even give yourself permission to honor your limits.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

I really want to highlight how hard these things that you've just been saying are, actually, Adrian.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

You know, I think it's easy to speak to these things, but to actually live them out, to not spend your days waiting for somebody to become the person you wish they were, to hope that somebody would see your pain and give you permission to actually give voice to it. I think it's really understandable to want those things. I think it's really understandable to have parts of you that are waiting for those things to happen, you know, waiting for somebody, something to intervene, to come in, to swoop in and protect you and pull you out of this painful relationship, this harmful pattern, this suffering. And it's been, you know, even personally for me, it's been a journey. And I think even as you were talking about what's worth waiting for, the long boring faithfulness. I was really struck by that. Part of that isn't, it isn't just like the spirituality piece, but the long-boring faithfulness to this work of healing. It's rarely a mountaintop experience. It is a slog, it is often a drudgery, but it is also beautiful when you find yourself able to look out and see the vista. You know, it's like to see what you've overcome, to see what you've done, to see what lies ahead for you. But it's hard. Yeah, I think I personally have had a lot of different experiences, but most recently, um, I had a really hard conversation with somebody that I love. And it took a tremendous amount of courage to to really speak to those parts of me that have just been holding on to that hope that the this other person, you know, would just change. This other person would just see, and I wouldn't have to do anything, you know, that I wouldn't have to step up and and honor my own needs and my own heart. I think that in the Christian, again, the Christian Catholic anthropology, we're taught that dignity is not something we wait to reclaim. We have our dignity at all times. But what takes time is actually letting your heart learn how to live from that dignity. And so in having this hard conversation, I realized, you know, I had a choice point. Like, am I going to live out of my dignity or am I not? You know, am I going to continue to live out of a pattern that I learned of waiting for these other people in my life to reveal to me my dignity when that's already been something that's been revealed to me. And I made the choice to say the hard thing, to set the boundary. And it was actually incredible when I said this from a place of knowing my dignity and worth, I didn't get the backlash of internal guilt and turmoil over what have I done? Why did I do this? I felt secure, and that was shocking to me. But it was beautiful, you know, because me setting a boundary that was rooted just in my knowledge of my own dignity and the dignity of the other person, I didn't say anything mean. I didn't say anything cruel. I didn't say anything judgmental or critical. I was able to say what needed to be said from a place where I felt sure that it was coming from love and it was leading toward love. And I'm not sure that I could have done that five years ago. I'm not even sure I could have done that one year ago, if I'm being completely honest. And so I I say that because I think it's important to really hone in on like, it doesn't take time to to find our dignity, to understand our dignity. It takes time to learn how to live from the dignity that we've always had that's given to us just from the very fact that God chose us, that we exist. Yeah, my hope is that for all of you listening, that is something that you can live into too. And I also want to speak to the fact that I I couldn't have possibly, well, I can't, I can't say that anything is possible with the Lord and the Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. But the process of me learning how to live from that dignity was surely expedited by the very fact that I have opened myself up to receive love in relationships that are safe, relationships that respect and honor my dignity and my worth, and teach me to respect and honor my own dignity and worth and how to live out of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

I want to acknowledge right away that there is a there's a lot of language in there that might seem overwhelming, unfamiliar to people, which I think is its own small tragedy. But there also may be something familiar and very relevant to your life. I know because I live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, I know that it takes work. But I also know that this work happened, it didn't happen in a vacuum, it happened with good guidance, it happened with a grade A husband, good looking one too. But above all else, it took a lot of fidelity, it took a lot of guidance, it took a lot of support, and it took a lot of work, and it took a lot of waiting. Good quality, appropriate waiting. So if you feel like this kind of waiting is something that is worth doing, but you want some help, as a reminder, we do offer mentorship, and that kind of support can also be yours to be had, and we'd love to help and talk and get to know you in any way that is relevant to you and support that need and offer that help as well. You can find that on our website, adrianandshay.com. If you would rather just dip a toe in a little bit, we have a live webinar on December 16th at what time, Shay? Noon Central Time. Noon Central Time. That's 12 Central Time. Um, so we also have that if you are available. We're just curious. I boy, I can't imagine that you don't have anything better to do. Um but a heck, even if you're bored, jump on, say hi. We we certainly would love to have you and be able to provide some some support there. So we also have that going on. Um, but that's about it, guys. Um, this is a really special time of the year for us. We're excited that you're here with us. Maybe we're not the best at closing things out, so let's say this. We hope your stockings are stuffed. We hope you have gotten something beneficial, spiritually heartening out of this. And um, one more time before Christmas, we're gonna talk about not just um Santa suits, but we're also gonna talk about the incarnation and what it means to be physically embodied, and that we are much, much more than just a meat suit. Um and that comes up a lot in the culture. So we want to talk about that and address that and talk about yes, your dignity in the incarnation and the dignity of being human. So if you want to find out about how great we are as human beings, join us on the next episode. And until then, we look forward to hearing from you as we continue to live the third way.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:32

We hope you have a very peaceful and charged Advent season leading up to Christmas. God bless you all. Like and subscribe if you wish. All right. God bless you. God bless you.