Advent begins

Yesterday was the first day of advent.  Advent is celebrated the four Sundays before Christmas.  I have had some dear friends share that they have loved this tradition.  I hesitated because we seldom have our dad home on Sunday's, especially during tithing settlement.  This year I am feeling an incredible pull to come to Christ, to center this Christmas celebration on him, to scale back on the frivolous things that we usually focus too much on.  I'm not really sure what this will all look like for my family but it is definitely become a matter of prayer.  I don't want to add in more traditions that add more stress but I do want to put forth the effort on those good things.

The principle of Mary and Martha come to mind.  There are so many good things that bring joy, anticipation, light hearts at Christmas.  I love the old traditions but I want to consider their worth and where they are leading me.  If they are not leading me to Christ then maybe we need to change a few things.  Martha was cumbered about preparing the food, taking care of the home, focusing on the temporal needs of her very special guest. Am I getting cumbered about the food, decorations, gifts, parties, obligations I may feel?  Mary was taking time to enjoy that guest.  She was choosing the better part.  What am I hanging on to that is keeping me from something better?  What priorities am I teaching my children?  We are raising an incredible generation.  They have a great work to do.  Do we have time to get lost in things that don't really matter?  I feel like I am a little lost, floundering.  It may be a process that takes a while for me to learn but I am anxious to move forward and hopeful that I can be led.

I want the magic of Christmas to be the glory of God, recognizing the gift of the Atonement, the gift of His son sent to earth for us, for me.  I want my relationship with Christ to become more personal.  I want to be better at living the things I know.  I want to be better at living 2 Nephi 25:26

 26And we ^atalk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we ^bprophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our ^cchildren may know to what source they may look for a^dremission of their sins.

I stumbled on this link Advent information and Christmas book for the month of December and am looking forward to using it for each Sunday of advent as well as the ideas for each day of December.

I also enjoyed this interview with Elder Bednar on being an apostle, particularly what we can do - be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and be consistently true to what we know.