Dear Lord; Once again Father, I want to start our Monday chat by thanking You for a lovely weekend with good friends and family.\u00a0 While I probably should have spent more time sleeping and recharging for the week ahead, the time spent with those I care about greatly outweighed the need for rest.\u00a0 Either way, it was a wonderful weekend and I thank You for that.<\/p>\n
This morning Lord, I\u2019d like to talk with You about the paradoxical effect this Season seems to bring on to some people.\u00a0 With all of the emphasis on the close relationships in our lives this time of year, those people experiencing a personal loss may dwell on that emptiness and end up having adverse feelings about the Holiday in general.\u00a0 Be it death, divorce, illness or physical separation causing those feelings, I\u2019ve seen quite a few folks who are just having a difficult time embracing the love this Time of Celebration exudes.\u00a0 The true shame in this really is that these people are missing the most important relationship that they have\u2026 The one with You!\u00a0 Joshua 1:9 reads :<\/p>\n
\u201cHave not I commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be you dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.\u201d<\/p>\n
While we all suffer from losses on this Earth at some point, if we put our focus on Your constant Presence in our lives, we are never truly alone.\u00a0 What an amazing Gift that is!\u00a0 Like all of Your Children at some point, I\u2019ve been guilty of focusing my heart on mortal pains now and again.\u00a0 The closer I get to You though Lord, the less time I spend with my heart in turmoil and the more thankful I become.\u00a0 Please reach out Your Light to all those in pain Father, so that they may feel the Peace and Love of this Blessed time of year.\u00a0 Amen.\u00a0 ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Lord; Once again Father, I want to start our Monday chat by thanking You for a lovely weekend with good friends and family.\u00a0 While I probably should have spent more time sleeping and recharging for the week ahead, the time spent with those I care about greatly outweighed the need for rest.\u00a0 Either way, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[310,9,256,296,236,311,308,90,306,309,4,216,24,208,314,111,121,313,104,307,133,304,19,305,25,10,265,312,187,40,106,49],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-adverse","tag-alone","tag-blessed","tag-celebration","tag-death","tag-divorce","tag-dwell","tag-embrace","tag-emphasis","tag-emptiness","tag-family","tag-feelings","tag-friends","tag-gift","tag-guilty","tag-holiday","tag-illness","tag-joshua","tag-light","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-monday","tag-pain","tag-paradox","tag-peace","tag-relationships","tag-season","tag-separation","tag-sleep","tag-thankful","tag-turmoil","tag-weekend"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-6x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}