Are you one of those women who gets stressed out at Christmastime? If so, you’re not alone.

But regardless of the reasons we might dread the approaching holidays, I want to help you see this time of year as an extra special time of making memories with your Maker.

Over the next four weeks, I want to help you plan for a stress-free Christmas. I want to help you refocus your heart and mind so that you will anticipate the holidays with a quiet heart, and get through them feeling recharged, refreshed and refueled.

The first step to a stress-free Christmas is to refocus on rest.

Rather than thinking of all you have to do this season, can you consciously slow down long enough to remember why (if there is a reason) everything needs to get done? Christmas was never meant to be a time of busyness, stress, long lines, packed to-do lists and running around like crazy trying to get it all done. Rather, it is a time to slow down and reflect on the greatest gift that we have received — the gift of a Savior, to a world that was previously without hope.

The Bible instructs us in Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” That verse, in context, was a reminder to God’s people that in the true knowledge of God and His deliverance there is peace, in contrast to the troubled nations that didn’t know God or His deliverance. If you and I know God — and His deliverance through His Son, Jesus — we can know peace in a way that the rest of the world can’t imagine. And that peace is a quiet confidence that whether or not things get done, God is in control. Whether or not a situation turns out the way I want, God is in control.

In the New American Standard Bible, that verse reads “Cease striving and know that I am God.”

Can you and I “cease striving” to do all we think we must do and remember that simply knowing God (and the fact that He has delivered us from the punishment of our sin) amounts to peace and rest? To rest is to trust Him in all things. And to trust Him in all things is to rest.

You can live differently this holiday season if you truly know the Source of Peace.

Enter the month of December with a quiet heart that slows down to remember what matters the most. And in doing so, you will be showing others what it means to trust — and to rest.