This morning was a not-so-blessed intersection of dawdling kids, stress, and spilled tuna water.

It was one of those starts to the day where you stand looking at the closed door after the last child, holding your mug that says “Totally the best mom ever” and sip the irony of a tea called ‘soothing’. Ah, the peace and joy of advent.

It’s not the fault of the season that times are stressful and people are people.

It’s not the fault of the season that lab samples need to be dropped off and you forgot to buy an ornament for the Christmas party exchange tonight.

I sipped my tea and began on my second batch of shortbread (the first being a frustrated disaster with the wrong measurements written down in the recipe). This shortbread is not just any shortbread. It’s a family recipe, top-secret, and one that, after the prior disappointment, required a call to my mom, just to hear her voice.

With the phone between my ear and shoulder, I called my mom, teary eyed, and let her soothing words wash over me. She told me about her day, about how she remembers her shortbread and parenting disasters. About our Aunt Bessie who brought the shortbread recipe over from Scotland and how I’m likely at least the fifth generation to have made it.

And she told me that she loved me and that she had been praying for me.

Sometimes all it takes is hearing the voice of someone who loves you.

After I hung up the phone, God reminded me that in this time of busyness and insecurities, the still small whisper of Jesus is with me. Telling me that he loves me, loves me to the manger and beyond to the cross and empty tomb.

He reminds me that the shortbread was not the only thing that Aunt Bessie left us with. There are stories in my family of others, of generations who heard the whisper of Jesus in their hearts and through their loving voices, faith carried its way down to me.

This Advent season I’m eternally grateful for the voices of those who love me, for the faith of others since the beginning of creation who have heard the call of God and followed him.

Today I just needed the reminder, and maybe you do too, that with all the other thoughts and voices rushing around in my head, I need to focus on the voice of the Spirit that speaks truth and love into my soul. I need to cling in gratitude to those around me who speak love into my life, and I need to look for ways and places that I can be that voice of love into the lives of others. Taking the time this season to be still, to listen, and to know the truth of the voice that speaks to us in love.