Impacted By Grace

On Sunday we lit the third candle of Advent - also known as the joy candle. If you aren’t familiar with the Advent candles, there are five candles, four in a circle with one in the middle. Each Sunday leading up to Christmas and on Christmas Eve one is lit, a Scripture is read, and a prayer is offered. Some churches ask different people to read and light the candles each week. As you get closer to Christmas Eve, more candles are lit until there is one left in the very middle, which represents Jesus.  There are three purple candles, one pink candle, and one white candle. The pink candle is the joy candle, and I always get a little extra excited when we light that candle. For one, it is pink and different from all the others so it stands out a little more. But mainly it is because of what it represents and the Scripture that goes along with it.  As the joy candle is lit, usually Luke 1:46-55 is read. This section of Scripture is often called “The Magnificat,” and is Mary’s

Stress. It’s around that time of year where stress starts to come in for most people.   Christmas is right around the corner, with all the expectations and obligations it entails, students are gearing up for their finals, many workplaces enter the busiest time with year-end goals and deadlines, and to top it all off the weather begins to take a typical turn towards the frigid. While this change in temperature may be to my taste, for many it is yet another thing to contend with. In light of the stress you may be facing, I’d like to lay out a few simple tips for dealing with stress.   The first is rather simple: take care of yourself .   A good principle to keep in mind is that the less you take care of yourself, the less you are capable of taking care of.   Eating well and getting enough sleep are critical aspects of not just mental health, but health in general.   It may be tempting to stay up late and work on something, but you can often get it done faster and to a higher degree