{"id":10366,"date":"2019-06-21T05:29:30","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T10:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=10366"},"modified":"2019-06-21T05:29:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T10:29:39","slug":"when-life-is-sad-god-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=10366","title":{"rendered":"When Life is Sad — God is Good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I just can\u2019t help myself. The inspirations at VBS keep coming so I must keep sharing! This has been a week of watching so many precious children get all caught up in God\u2019s goodness and yesterday was off the charts. We had a departure of wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites to a day that was all about Jesus. Rather than the boisterous exclamation \u201cGod is good\u201d, this day our theme was \u201cWhen life is sad \u2013 God is good\u201d so in our Faith Station, we whispered those words. It\u2019s amazing how children respond to the atmosphere they\u2019re in and this day, the atmosphere was created by the wooden cross in front of the sun (how appropriate \u2013 the sun was the spotlight for THE SON!), that was enhanced by the little strands of lights and ivy. We were amazed at the somber posture the kids took on as soon as they saw the cross. They respected it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On a personal note, I came into yesterday\u2019s VBS Faith Station in prayer for a dear cousin who was having serious brain surgery at the same time. I\u2019ll be honest with you \u2013 though I was absolutely in a positive \u201cDo not fear \u2013 only believe\u201d mindset, still I thought about the theme \u201cWhen life is sad \u2013 God is good\u201d and wondered if God was giving me that theme just in case the surgery didn\u2019t go as well as expected. But, thanks be to God, at 11:10 am, I heard from his sister who said all went well and heading to recovery\u2026”Praise God!\u201d But I wonder, had it been the other way, I think that I had been so immersed in the goodness of God this week \u2013 that I would have still exclaimed: \u201cGod is good\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This day was all about Jesus Who was on the earth to show us God\u2019s goodness and love. We talked to the kids about betrayal and how Jesus knew He was going to be betrayed. We asked them the question: \u201cIf you knew that something really bad was going to happen to you at a certain place, would you still go there? What would you do?\u201d The common answer was \u201cStay at home!\u201d From our script: \u201cBut, Jesus went to the garden even though He knew something terrible would happen. He was betrayed, arrested and He knew He\u2019d be beaten and mocked and He knew that after all that, He\u2019d be crucified \u2013 nailed to a cross to die. Jesus\u2019 friends and family watched it happen. Can you imagine? They were so upset and sad. Have you ever been sad? We\u2019ve all gone through sad times, but we\u2019re learning about God\u2019s goodness and we\u2019re learning that when \u2018Life is sad \u2013 God is good\u2019. Jesus was willing to die to take the punishment for our sins, the wrong things we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here, we gave each child a stone which represented their sins, and said, \u201cYou know, this stone kind of reminds me of sin. Stones are usually kind of dirty, aren\u2019t they? That\u2019s like sin. Sin makes our hearts dirty, and if our hearts are dirty, we can\u2019t be close to God. Sin separates us from God. Another thing about a stone is that it\u2019s hard. Is anyone\u2019s stone soft? No? That\u2019s like sin, too. Sin can make our hearts hard. It can make us turn away from God. Remember Pharaoh? His heart was hard, and he turned away from God. What if you had to carry the weight of every sin, every day of your life? Imagine how heavy that would get. But Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins. When Jesus died on the cross, He took the punishment for our sins. We don\u2019t have to carry them anymore. Jesus overcame the world! Let\u2019s ask Jesus to forgive us for our sins.\u201d Then we invited the children to place their stone in the basket in front of the cross as a symbol of their being forgiven. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The simple message of the cross. In children\u2019s language \u2013 young and old. It is the same message no matter what age we are. This blog today is even longer than my usual lengthy blog, but perhaps there are those that need to see how simple it is to turn over a new leaf by receiving Christ into your heart. We walked the children over to the chapel where they sat in adoration of our Savior. I was amazed at the reverence and tenderness of each child. Yesterday, my blog was about the open arms of Jesus to children when He said, \u201cLet the little children come to me and forbid them not,\u201d and I believe He has His arms open wide for you today. Our chapel speaker said these words: \u201cJesus loves us so much that He was willing to be nailed to a cross so He could forgive our heavy sins. What amazing love! Remember what amazing love He has for you. It was a sad, sad day when Jesus died. But we know that when life is sad\u2026..God is good! And God was very good because that wasn\u2019t the end of the story. On the third day after Jesus died a few of His friends went to the tomb and were amazed. There was an angel in the tomb who said, \u201cWhy are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn\u2019t here! He is risen from the dead.\u201d Luke 24:5-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because of Jesus, we can remember that God is good, even when life is sad. Jesus gives us a reason to celebrate every day! And, that, my friends, is the Gospel message that is as fresh today as it was on the day of Christ\u2019s resurrection. It is so fresh that it is a brand new day that affords a brand new start for children of all ages. If this blog is nudging you toward the cross, you can thank all these precious children for it as scriptures says: \u201cA little child shall lead them\u2026\u2026.\u201d Isaiah 11:6<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just can\u2019t help myself. The inspirations at VBS keep coming so I must keep sharing! This has been a week of watching so many precious children get all caught up in God\u2019s goodness and yesterday was off the charts. We had a departure of wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites to a day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13595,13594],"tags":[13600,1417,1158,13598,849,9548,40,13599,3205,12587,13596,1609,11984,2570,5317,13597,5884],"class_list":["post-10366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god-is-good","category-sad","tag-child-shall-lead","tag-cross","tag-do-not-fear","tag-forgive-our-sins","tag-god-is-good","tag-goodness","tag-inspiration","tag-isaiah-116","tag-israelites","tag-only-believe","tag-praise-god","tag-son","tag-sun","tag-vacation-bible-school","tag-vbs","tag-when-life-is-sad","tag-wilderness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10376,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10366\/revisions\/10376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}