{"id":706,"date":"2011-03-10T13:11:51","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T18:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=706"},"modified":"2011-03-10T13:11:51","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T18:11:51","slug":"the-rainbow-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=706","title":{"rendered":"The Rainbow Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Good morning Father!<\/p>\n

As You\u2019re undoubtedly aware Father, it\u2019s a dreary, rainy day here in Delaware.\u00a0 It\u2019s just one of those mornings where I wake up, look outside, and seriously contemplate finding some excuse to crawl back under the covers.\u00a0 Alas, today that wasn\u2019t an option so out into the weather I went.<\/p>\n

Driving into the office following teacher conferences at the boys\u2019 school (which went very well\u2026 thank You!), I started contemplating the lingering clouds and falling rain a little bit more.\u00a0 Like all of Your Gifts to us, the rain has a purpose; it supports and nourishes life, and cleanses the landscape it traverses.\u00a0 While we may not always feel joyous when the weather shifts, it is one of Your Blessings to us all the same.<\/p>\n

And then comes the rainbow\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:\u00a0I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.\u00a0 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,\u00a0I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.\u00a0 Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. \u00a0Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”\u201d \u2013 Genesis 9:12-16 (NIV)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I LOVE<\/span> this Lord: a rainbow is the reminder of Your covenant with us.\u00a0 What an amazing signature You have Father!\u00a0 Noah must have had such a smile on his face seeing that first rainbow.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Today Father, You also placed on my heart the idea to start \u201cThankful Thursday\u201d<\/em> here on phatherphil.org.\u00a0 The concept I had was that on each Thursday\u2019s message to You, I\u2019d close by listing some of the things I\u2019ve been especially thankful for this week.\u00a0 Just for curiosity\u2019s sake, I did a quick Google search on the phrase and found that it was already something that was being done and coordinated on another site.\u00a0 The site is a blog called \u201cGrace Alone\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/a>, and I\u2019m pleased to link to her site today.<\/p>\n

This week has been a hectic roller-coaster-ride Lord, but it\u2019s funny that during those crazy days I find myself even more thankful for Your Blessings.\u00a0 As this is the first \u201cThankful Thursday\u201d<\/em> entry for me, I\u2019ll start with the most obvious and significant miracle in my life:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m extremely thankful for the unending support of my wonderful wife Shannon.\u00a0 As You know Father, things have been difficult business-wise over the last several months.\u00a0 Through every up-and-down, she\u2019s always been there for me with words of comfort and encouragement.\u00a0 Her love is an amazing gift Lord, and I feel truly Blessed having her as my wife.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are so many other Blessings You grant me each day Lord, but we\u2019ll start there.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, I thank You for the cleansing rain and the vibrant reminder of Your Covenant that will soon follow.\u00a0 I pray we can all see through the apparent gloom and witness Your Shining Majesty in each of our lives today.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Good morning Father! As You\u2019re undoubtedly aware Father, it\u2019s a dreary, rainy day here in Delaware.\u00a0 It\u2019s just one of those mornings where I wake up, look outside, and seriously contemplate finding some excuse to crawl back under the covers.\u00a0 Alas, today that wasn\u2019t an option so out into the weather I went. […]<\/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":[350,359,168,256,419,12,358,182,516,48,866,27,176,450,43,647,807,915,375,546,7,136,259,487,361,1036,1037,173,53,844,110,586,208,276,966,815,59,1035,140,593,916,806,222,267,757,920,901,78,133,355,141,377,506,77,509,392,648,1038,217,281,46,1041,1040,609,594,174,547,227,796,73,373,817,764,476,175,1039,114,40,1034,1042,562,135,481,157,504,449,378,379,348,723],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-amazing","tag-bible","tag-bless","tag-blessed","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-blog","tag-boys","tag-business","tag-cleansing","tag-cloud","tag-comfort","tag-conference","tag-contemplate","tag-courage","tag-crazy","tag-days","tag-dear-lord","tag-delaware","tag-difficult","tag-doubt","tag-dreary","tag-driving","tag-earth","tag-encouragement","tag-everlasting-covenant","tag-falling-rain","tag-father","tag-flood","tag-follow","tag-fun","tag-genesis","tag-gift","tag-gifts","tag-god","tag-google","tag-grace","tag-grace-alone","tag-heart","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-hectic","tag-joy","tag-joyous","tag-kind","tag-landscape","tag-law","tag-life","tag-love","tag-message","tag-mind","tag-miracle","tag-morning","tag-nature","tag-nourish","tag-obvious","tag-office","tag-one-of-those-mornings","tag-pray","tag-purpose","tag-rain","tag-rainbow","tag-rainy-day","tag-remember","tag-ride","tag-school","tag-serious","tag-shannon","tag-significant","tag-smile","tag-special","tag-start","tag-support","tag-teach","tag-teacher","tag-teacher-conferences","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thankful-thursday","tag-the-rainbow-connection","tag-wake-up","tag-weather","tag-week","tag-wife","tag-will","tag-witness","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful","tag-word","tag-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-bo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","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=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}