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Standing at the threshold of a new year, we ask a hard, freeing question: what is mine to hold, and what is mine to let go? We look back on a year of conversations that shaped our hearts, then lean into a fresh practice of healthy detachment that protects, rather than weakens, secure attachment. With Karen Casey’s Let Go Now as a guide, we explore how choosing to act instead of react creates the quiet where love grows—and how stepping away from chaos can be the most compassionate move in the room.

If you’re ready to unhook from other people’s storms, honor your limits, and carry a softer, truer strength into 2026, this conversation is your companion. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more listeners find their way to peace.

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3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
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5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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A Christmas Eve Meditation for You, Mom

The day is loud, the list is long, and yet a quiet song can steady the heart. We pause for a short Christmas Eve heartlift, reading Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55, The Voice translation) and letting its courage seep into the places where we feel stretched thin. This isn’t soft-focus sentiment. Mary’s prayer names a great reversal: the proud scattered, the lowly lifted, the hungry filled. That vision speaks to the kitchen, the table, and the tangled emotions of hosting and holding a family together.

We share the context behind the Magnificat using The Voice translation, then read it slowly so each line can land. Along the way, we draw out why these ancient words are so modern: God’s attention rests on the overlooked, dignity comes to those who serve in silence, and mercy doesn’t expire with the season. If you’ve ever felt like your holiday labor is invisible, this reflection says what the gospel says—God notices you. The blessing is not reserved for stained glass; it meets you in flour-dusted hands and late-night wrapping sessions.

You’ll also hear a simple practice: craft your own Magnificat for the day. Start with gratitude, name a place where you long for God’s reversal, and end with trust that mercy endures from generation to generation. Use it as a breath prayer between tasks or as a centering line before guests arrive. By the end, expect to feel seen, steadied, and ready to step back into the celebration with a fuller heart.

If this Christmas heartlift encourages you, share it with a friend who needs calm today, subscribe for future reflections, and leave a quick review so more weary hearts can find their way here. Merry Christmas, Heartlifter.

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

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3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
4. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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A cave near Bethlehem. Stone, straw, and a light that still reaches us. We follow Saint Nicholas’s quiet pilgrimage and find our own footing in a season when headlines blur, and hearts grow tired. The story of Emmanuel, God with us, becomes more than a lyric—it turns into a lifeline you can hold, a place you can enter, a presence you can trust when love feels heavy and the calendar won’t slow down.

We open with Nicholas’s years near Beit Jala, exploring how a humble cave shaped his generous life. From there, we turn to the liturgies of Doug McKelvey's Every Moment Holy, to name the ache of too much information and too little strength. What if the most faithful move is to honor creaturely limits? What if justice and mercy begin with yielding the unbearable to the One whose shoulders can carry it? That shift reframes compassion, helping us respond to real needs that intersect our actual lives—family tensions, impatient lines, neighbors on edge—without going numb.

Along the way, we offer simple prompts to list your griefs, discern your small share in God’s redemptive work, and carry a single phrase of Scripture through the week. The goal isn’t to escape reality; it’s to live it with Emmanuel—fully God, fully human—beside you.

If this speaks to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs rest, and leave a quick review to help others find this space. What burden are you ready to place on God's stronger shoulders today?

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

1. Support the show: Your Donation Matters
2. Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
4. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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What if love didn’t start with your effort but with God’s presence moving toward you? This guided, unhurried reading of 1 John 4:7–21 explores a radical claim—God is love—and shows how that truth can steady anxious hearts, transform relationships, and make faith visible in everyday life.

We walk through the text line by line, hearing how the sending of Jesus redefines love as concrete and self-giving. Together we consider why living in love means living in God, how the Spirit anchors our assurance, and what it looks like to “live like Jesus” in the world. The passage dismantles the fear of punishment, replacing it with confidence rooted in perfect love that drives out fear. Then it turns the spotlight on practice: if we say we love God, we must love the people we can see—especially the difficult ones. That challenge is not a burden to earn approval but an overflow of being loved first.

Along the way, we pause for reflection. What is your picture of God? How does that picture shape your capacity to receive love and extend it to others? With a simple invitation to open your hands and welcome a fresh touch of grace, this episode blends scripture, stillness, and honest questions that lead to action. If you’ve been craving a faith that feels less like striving and more like abiding, these words offer both clarity and comfort.

Listen and share with someone who needs courage today. If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review to help others find it, and tell us: where do you want perfect love to quiet fear in your life?

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

1. Support the show: Your Donation Matters
2. Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
4. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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"Understanding is the essence of love" (Thich Nhat Hanh).

The quiet before wonder can change everything. We move through Advent by stepping into the story of Saint Nicholas—not the myth, but the young man whose hidden generosity saved daughters from slavery and modeled a love that protects dignity. From that spark, we explore how real love is trained, not assumed: a discipline of attention that seeks to understand first, then act with compassion, joy, and freedom.

I share why understanding is the essence of love and how it becomes a practical way forward when relationships feel stuck. Drawing on Thich Nhat Hanh’s wisdom, we test our affection with two questions: Does this love bring joy, and does it protect freedom? Then we get tactical with Nonviolent Communication, reframing conflict from a win-lose standoff into a process grounded in connection before strategy. You’ll learn to name needs clearly, separate needs from solutions, build trust through empathy, and translate requests into positive, actionable language—skills that can change your family table, your marriage, and your holiday gatherings.

Threaded throughout is a faith-centered reminder that no human can meet every need we carry. Rooting our belonging in God lightens the load we place on those we love and helps us set boundaries that honor both safety and dignity. With stories of courage, hard choices, and repair, we map a path to wholehearted living where generosity is quiet, presence is powerful, and hope is stubborn.

If this conversation helps you breathe deeper or love better, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. What relationship will you train your heart for this week?

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

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5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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A storm-tossed sky lantern lands in a front yard with a daughter’s message to her dad, and a simple response turns into a global moment of shared grief and hope. That story becomes our gateway into the real Saint Nicholas—an early Christian bishop who noticed the vulnerable, met practical needs with courage, and quietly changed lives in a collapsing empire.

We sit down with author and screenwriter Matt Mikalatos to explore his devotional, Praying with Saint Nicholas, and the surprising history behind a figure too often flattened into myth. From Patara to Myra, we step through persecution under Diocletian, the pivot of Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea, where core beliefs were hammered out amid risk and conviction. We revisit the famous dowry rescue that inspired stockings, the confessor tradition that modeled reconciliation after failure, and the gripping moment Nicholas halted an unjust execution—mercy with a spine of steel.

Threaded through it all is a practical Advent invitation: become a noticer. Pair 1 John 4:7–21 with small daily acts that restore dignity in your neighborhood. Slip generosity where it’s needed, listen deeply to someone who feels invisible, and choose sustainable compassion that protects your mental health while expanding your capacity to love. We also clear up confusion around venerating saints, reframing it as asking trusted elders in the great cloud of witnesses to pray with us, not instead of us.

If you’re longing for an Advent that feels grounded, historic, and fiercely hopeful, this conversation offers both story and structure. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a one-sentence review to help others find the show. Your voice helps carry this light further.

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

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3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
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5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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Sharing a Thanksgiving Prayer/Meditation of Gratitude: Ask for Something Greater. Matthew 7:7 heralds a beautiful message: "Ask and keep on asking, and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking, and you will find; knock and keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you."

This week's question: "What if your prayers are too small for the life you’re meant to live?" In this focused, six-minute guided meditation, we slow down, breathe, and move from timid requests to bold, honest asking rooted in God’s generosity. We open with a calm invitation to welcome God into the room, then step straight into the questions we often avoid:

• Am I afraid of being disappointed?
• Do I feel unworthy?
• Do I doubt that God will help?

Naming these barriers out loud becomes the first act of courage.

If this moved you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What “greater” are you asking for this week?

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Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

1. Support the show: Your Donation Matters
2. Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
4. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon

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"Learning to say no to good things so we can experience better things may sound easy, but it can feel really hard - hard to know when it's the thing to do, and hard to do it. Yet there's a healthy vulnerability that comes with saying no."

-Dr. Arianna Molloy, Healthy Calling: From Toxic Burnout to Sustainable Work

Silence and emptiness emerge as surprising allies. Drawing on Thomas Moore, we treat emptiness not as failure but as space for meaning and healthy detachment. Emptiness quiets overcontrol, loosens ego-driven giving, and clears room for wisdom. In today's episode, I offer practices you can start today: guilt-free hobbies, shorter lists, pauses between tasks, and a single-page heart journal.

Join our growing community that prizes thoughtful dialogue, empathic listening, and actionable hope. Connect on Heartlift Central (Substack) and our private Facebook group to share your reflections, your haiku, and your next brave step. If this ad-free work serves you, consider a tax-deductible donation at janellrardon.com to help spread the influence of the podcast. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a gentler pace, and tell us: where will you create space this week?

Support the show

Begin Your Heartlifter's Journey:

1. Support the show: Your Donation Matters
2. Leave a review and rate the podcast: WRITE A REVIEW
3. Make a tax-deductible donation through Heartlift International
4. Visit and subscribe to Heartlift Central on Substack. This is our new online meeting place for Heartlifters worldwide.
5. Download the 2025 Advent Guide: The Great Glimmer Hunt
6. Meet me on Instagram: @janellrardon