{"id":9864,"date":"2019-04-09T05:41:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T10:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=9864"},"modified":"2019-04-09T05:41:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T10:41:16","slug":"do-you-recognize-a-holy-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=9864","title":{"rendered":"Do You Recognize a Holy Moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s the first Sunday of the month and I am a Greeter at my church. This particular Sunday I can\u2019t stay for my full shift because I need to leave about ten minutes early for a meeting. I ask my fellow greeter who is posted at a less-traffic door if she\u2019d switch with me today because the door I typically \u201cman\u201d is the front door which has much more traffic coming through it. I know it will be easier for me to slip away early at the less-traffic door.

As I make my way to that door and open it, I see a \u201cdressed to the nines\u201d with perfectly coiffed hair, older woman on her cell phone. She is holding fast to the handrail that supports those who need help coming up the slight incline to the doors. Her conversation on her phone ends and I watch her hold tightly to the railing as she makes her way to me. I\u2019m cheering her on from my vantage point. She comes to my opened door, beaming. I say \u201cYou made it! You are a winner!\u201d I reach my arms out to give her a hug and say \u201cWelcome, beautiful lady! Just look at you all dressed up and looking so beautiful for the King!\u201d She, immediately, breaks into conversation with me. \u201cThank you for making me feel so good. I was on the phone with my daughter. She wants me to come live with her and she doesn\u2019t like it when I go out alone like this, but I have to! I have cancer. It\u2019s terminal. I don\u2019t know how much longer I have but I do know I don\u2019t want to stay home and feel sorry for myself. I want to come to church where I can praise my Lord and be with people. It takes my mind off myself. It\u2019s the best place to be!\u201d This sweet woman is preaching a sermon and doesn’t even realize it. I compliment her huge \u201cVera Bradley\u201d tote bag she is carrying. She says \u201cOh, my daughter bought this for me! She got tired of seeing me carrying all my medicine in a separate bag. Just look in here. I have my medicines, my shawl, and everything else.\u201d It’s my cue to ask, “Can I have a little prayer with you?” She welcomes it. I pray a few words of God’s love and His perfect timing for her race to end but in the meantime, I pray for comfort to her and lots more Holy Moments like today.

Like clockwork, another older woman is coming through the door who is carrying an adorable purse with a big pink bow on it. I exclaim \u201cGood Morning, beautiful! I love your purse!\u201d She replies \u201cOh, my daughter gave it to me!\u201d And my other friend says \u201cMe, too! My daughter gave me my purse!\u201d The second woman asks \u201cWhat are your names? My name is Delores!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Sonya\u201d and I say \u201cDonna\u201d! We get into a group hug and are sharing in, what I believe is, a Holy Moment \u2013 a divine set-up for all three of us \u2013 women who need warm connections and embraces! If I were at the other door, I might have missed this Holy Moment!

One of the things about Holy Moments is they’re really attractive, and they differentiate us from the culture\u2014from the world. Holy Moments are those when we set aside self-interest, where we set aside what we feel like doing, where we have a little conversation with God and we say to God, \u201cAll right God, what do you want me to do in<\/g> this moment?\u201d And then we do exactly what we feel God is calling us to do in<\/g> that moment. That’s a Holy Moment. And Holy Moments tend to be filled with kindness and love and generosity and patience and thoughtfulness and courage. Holy Moments are filled with these things, and so, they’re incredibly attractive.

Holy Moments help us to grow in character; they help us to become a-better-version-of-ourselves; they help us to become the person God created us to be\u2014and that’s a beautiful path. And we create enough of them, people say: \u201cWow, she’s got something I don’t have\u201d; \u201cHe’s got something. I want what he’s got.\u201d That’s how the first Christians did it. That’s how they spread across the world at an alarming pace. They didn’t rely on promoting Christianity. They used the very, very powerful force of attraction. Christianity’s always been about attraction, not promotion. Let\u2019s be attractive today to someone who needs just a little bit of our time that makes them feel worth living!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

It\u2019s the first Sunday of the month and I am a Greeter at my church. This particular Sunday I can\u2019t stay for my full shift because I need to leave about ten minutes early for a meeting. I ask my fellow greeter who is posted at a less-traffic door if she\u2019d switch with me today…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9865,"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":[12795,12793,12794],"tags":[12792,11814,7581,485,264,12790,12785,4504,1556,12788,12789,2046,12787,4520,1066,12791,12784,12786],"class_list":["post-9864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gods-timing","category-holy-moment","category-prayer","tag-attraction","tag-attractive","tag-cancer","tag-comfort","tag-courage","tag-embraces","tag-feel-sorry","tag-generosity","tag-greeter","tag-holy-moment","tag-hug","tag-kindness","tag-older-woman","tag-patience","tag-prayer","tag-self-interest","tag-terminal","tag-warm-connections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9864","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=9864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9866,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9864\/revisions\/9866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}