{"id":24617,"date":"2018-11-27T03:30:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T11:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=24617"},"modified":"2018-11-27T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T16:56:25","slug":"november-27-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2018\/11\/27\/november-27-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"November 27, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/p>\n

“I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.”\u00a0<\/em>Joel\u00a02:25<\/p>\n

Growing Out of the Fallen<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The words on a blog that accompanied the photo below were “growing out of the fallen.”<\/p>\n

In many ways I could see Floyd like that giant fallen tree.\u00a0My “gentle giant” was struck down by some rare, unusual infection that we still don’t completely understand.<\/p>\n

And yet, if I stand back and look at it from another perspective, I see good things that God, in His unique way, has brought out of it.\u00a0There has been the most unusual wave of prayer that has come out of Floyd’s illness. Life is busy and many things call out for our time and attention. But many are still praying.\u00a0It’s so wonderful, and so profound. I can’t help but wonder what God is up to with all this.\u00a0I know He is moving on people’s hearts to pray.\u00a0I know those prayers aren’t wasted.\u00a0Something is happening that we can’t see or understand. One friend recently said, “Only heaven will reveal all that God has been up to these past couple of years.”\u00a0Like the tree growing out of the fallen tree, God is bringing life and growth through this wave of prayer after Floyd was struck down in illness.<\/p>\n

I’m not a giant like that tree, but in many ways I, too, was struck down\u2014by the cancer that attacked my body.\u00a0I faced death, I “felt” like death for many months, and I have no idea what is ahead.<\/p>\n

If I stand back and look at my life, I, too, can see growth.\u00a0God has brought richness of fellowship, intimacy with Him, a deeper walk of faith, an ability to trust Him in new ways, and so much more into my relationship with Him.\u00a0I have grown! There is definitely life that has come from the fall l experienced.\u00a0I am so, so grateful for the beauty of fresh life that He has brought through the very low time that I walked through\u2014and continue to walk through.<\/p>\n

One of the things I have always loved about God is that He creates new beginnings for us.\u00a0He is constantly picking up the pieces in our lives, and creating something new, fresh, and beautiful.\u00a0He didn’t stop creating after the seven days when He created the world.\u00a0He is the ultimate, continual Creator.<\/p>\n

He brings “beauty out of ashes.”\u00a0He takes what has been destroyed and breathes fresh life into it.\u00a0He doesn’t accept failure or defeat. He doesn’t say, “Sorry, you blew it.”\u00a0He doesn’t condemn us or give up on us. He doesn’t write us off because we’ve sinned or disappointed Him one too many times.\u00a0He doesn’t say that we should have done more and then it would have been okay.<\/p>\n

No!\u00a0He restores.\u00a0He renews.\u00a0He heals.\u00a0He forgives. He redeems.\u00a0He creates a new plan.\u00a0He recovers what has been lost.\u00a0He rescues us from disasters we’ve created.\u00a0He clears the record of our transgressions.\u00a0He pardons fully and completely.\u00a0 He mends what has been broken.\u00a0He rebuilds what has been destroyed.\u00a0He reconciles in broken relationships.\u00a0He saves us from ourselves.\u00a0He never, ever stops working in our lives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIn hope, O God, we look for the evidence of Your work in fallen things. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-6p3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24638,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24617\/revisions\/24638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}