{"id":15235,"date":"2021-12-03T05:12:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T11:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15235"},"modified":"2021-12-03T05:12:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T11:12:28","slug":"christmas-coping-moping-or-hoping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=15235","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Coping, Moping or Hoping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay! Your beautiful Thanksgiving family photos on social media drew me in. Incredible displays of tables set with perfection. Those photos represent family love and traditions. Seeing them makes me want to gather all the photos I took and add them to my blog today, but I won\u2019t. Obviously, I\u2019m still in thanks-giving and gratitude-living afterglow. But, I\u2019m moving on to this glorious Christmas season of rockin\u2019 around the Christmas tree and dreaming of a white Christmas.

But maybe Christmas cheer isn\u2019t on your radar right now. You may not be invested in the holidays while others are getting their holly-jolly-selves on! They’re cheerful, happy, all caught up in their blessing moods while you are in the middle of bailing water out of your boat. You\u2019re holding your breath that one more thing doesn\u2019t capsize your boat and you go under. You may be one who dreads this time of the year as it holds so many memories past and you\u2019re so very lonely. Or it is the season that reminds you that you have little or nothing at all to shop \u2018til you drop. You\u2019re a giver and it breaks your heart that you can\u2019t give.

I know not everyone is able to get into the \u201cIt\u2019s the most wonderful time<\/strong> of the year\u201d singing, dancing, and ringing jingle bells. Your hope has been lost from the heaviness of the weight you are carrying. I know that because I know what those weights look and feel like. I\u2019ve been there. Even as I type this blog today, I\u2019m thinking of some dear family members and friends who are carrying, what seem to be, enormous weights of hopelessness.

Here comes the lessons we learn again from Paul the Apostle who had the right to tell us what gratitude and hope looks like because he knew heavy weights. He said: \u201cWe rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Hope does not disappoint us, because God poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us.\u201d Romans 5:2-5

We can be thankful, even in hardship, because our future is based on God\u2019s love, not on our present situation. We may experience temporary hardships, but they all came TO PASS. The phrase \u201cit came to pass\u201d occurs again and again in the Old Testament. \u201cIt came to pass\u201d describes events in history and even our own experiences. \u201cIt came to pass\u201d reminds us that these tough times are soon over; they come, but they “come to pass.” We may not always realize it, but it is always true. I know this scripture is true \u2013 I lived it. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) Some of those nights were long, long nights, but they came to pass and they did pass. Wounds heal. Heartbreak mends. Tears cease. A new day dawns. A new sunrise dispels the darkness. Despair loses its hold. Grief is replaced with hope. It came to pass.

Being positive and faith-filled takes discipline. Can I hear a big \u201cAMEN\u201d? We can do this. Gratitude is in us. We don\u2019t want to waste this season with worry. We don\u2019t want to live in regret. We don\u2019t want to miss out on THIS day that He made with you and me in mind. Because this day \u2013 came to pass. We\u2019ll never get this day back. And this Advent and Christmas will never come again.

This is our opportunity to look up with hope and expectation that something good is about to happen. As we embrace the journey of a young, courageous girl and a supportive, noble man to the town of Bethlehem, may we too, take a journey of faith and hope. There can be \u201cJoy to the World\u201d and joy to you and me that dispels the darkness around us and the brightness of the Star of Bethlehem brightens our own world with hope and joy. Isn\u2019t it worth the effort to take the journey that might change everything? \u201cThis is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.\u201d Psalm 118:24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay! Your beautiful Thanksgiving family photos on social media drew me in. Incredible displays of tables set with perfection. Those photos represent family love and traditions. Seeing them makes me want to gather all the photos I took and add them to my blog today, but I won\u2019t. Obviously, I\u2019m still in thanks-giving and gratitude-living…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15236,"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":[22237,15576,13568,22238],"tags":[579,22236,1210,1769,4241,6876,22234,3204,13610,38,15714,324,16099,40,498,22235,7670,924],"class_list":["post-15235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-hope","category-gratitude","category-hope","category-hopelessness","tag-advent","tag-blessing-mood","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-christmas-cheer","tag-christmas-hope","tag-coping","tag-expectation","tag-faith-filled-2","tag-gratitude","tag-holly-jolly","tag-hopelessness","tag-hoping","tag-inspiration","tag-joy-to-the-world","tag-moping","tag-positive","tag-worry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15235","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=15235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15238,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15235\/revisions\/15238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}