{"id":24792,"date":"2018-12-29T03:30:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T11:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=24792"},"modified":"2018-12-28T14:13:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T22:13:45","slug":"december-29-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2018\/12\/29\/december-29-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"December 29, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

\u201cForever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to Your ordinances, for all Your servants.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Psalm 119: 89-91<\/p>\n

Cranky Christmas<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ok, so I finally hit the \u201cChristmas wall.\u201d I was bone weary with all the shopping and preparations as it all just came crashing down on me suddenly and without warning.\u00a0 My husband was with me when it happened, poor guy. It could have been a nice little walk around the neighborhood together.<\/p>\n

Of course, I wanted to blame the friendly neighbor who wanted to chat with us while we were out for MY walk. I deserved that walk, by golly, that fresh air, that time with my husband. I could see that this was going to be a lengthy visit with the extra-verbal neighbor, and that\u2019s when the holiday cheer I\u2019d been feeling disappeared down the road with the \u201cJingle Bells\u201d sleigh.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d run out of good tidings, as I began to stew silently over this inconvenient neighbor. Boy oh boy, didn\u2019t they know I had twelve batches of fudge to make, seven more loaves of pumpkin bread to bake, presents to wrap, groceries to buy, the rest home to visit, and don\u2019t forget about consoling an old friend who\u2019d lost their spouse recently. Oh my, I was in high demand.<\/p>\n

Why, this was entirely my husband\u2019s fault; if he wasn\u2019t so sociable and chatty, I\u2019d be down the road and onto bigger and better things. Right? Wrong. Oh so very wrong, on so many levels.<\/p>\n

What bigger\u00a0<\/em>and better\u00a0<\/em>things, anyway? This is where I stumble so many times in my walk with the Lord. I\u2019d forgotten that He places people in my path in HIS timing, not mine. And when I get a little greedy with MY time, and forget about the Lord\u2019s bigger purpose? Well, the fruit of that\u00a0<\/em>attitude usually feels like falling off a brick wall, kind of like the one I hit recently.<\/p>\n

Yes, I repented before the Lord for my selfishness and prayed that the neighbor didn\u2019t notice I was having a cranky Christmas. I also prayed for another chance with that person (just please not today, Lord!)<\/p>\n

\u201cThank You, Jesus, You hold all things in Your hands. You move the stars and set the tides. You place people for a reason and a season. Help us recognize the bigger purpose in every situation, sharing Your gospel of love and salvation.\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-24792","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-6rS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24792","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=24792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24793,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24792\/revisions\/24793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}