{"id":4810,"date":"2015-12-23T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/?p=4810"},"modified":"2015-12-23T10:13:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T17:13:53","slug":"choose-joy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/choose-joy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CHOOSE JOY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Habakkuk 3:18<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYet I will rejoice in the <\/em>Lord<\/em>, I will joy in the God of my salvation.<\/em>\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I recently received the following email from dear friend who has given me permission to share it with you. It says it all!<\/p>\n

Your evotional once again is right on target.\u00a0 Yesterday, I had a co-worker tell me that just because it is Christmas that is no reason for me to be so cheery!\u00a0 She went on to tell me that there really is no reason to celebrate because there are a lot of unhappy people in the world.\u00a0 I took that to mean that she is one of the unhappy.\u00a0 She lives by herself and maybe she is feeling alone and sad??\u00a0 Today when she gets to work she will find a lovely flower arrangement waiting for her on her desk.\u00a0 It comes with a prayer that she may find the reason for celebrating this year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember when I was newly divorced and had to remain home on Christmas Eve by myself waiting for my daughter to be returned to me late that night by her father.\u00a0 My family was together celebrating and I was sitting there alone.\u00a0 For a few minutes I began to feel sorry for myself, but then I thought this is silly.\u00a0 Just because I am alone does not mean I can\u2019t celebrate.\u00a0 I fixed myself a nice cup of hot chocolate and turned the lights down and lit the Christmas tree.\u00a0\u00a0 I put a Christmas special on the television.\u00a0 Being a working, single mom at Christmas means you are a very busy person.\u00a0 I enjoyed being able to sit in quiet and relax and unwind and pray.\u00a0 I began to actually look forward to Christmas Eve knowing I would have that time to myself.\u00a0 I am sure I was a happier mom on Christmas morning because of that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know it is difficult for you without Joyce physically by your side.\u00a0 My best friend will be spending her first Christmas without her husband of 35 years by her side.\u00a0 I will be praying for you.\u00a0 I think my co-worker brought that to my attention yesterday so that I would be reminded to pray for those missing their loved ones and those that really need to be saved.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The most important thing I can do this Christmas season is to make time to be alone to pray.<\/strong><\/p>\n

May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!<\/p>\n

– – – Pastor Cecil\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Habakkuk 3:18 \u201cYet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.\u201d I recently received the following email from dear friend who has given me permission to share it with you. It says it all! Your evotional once again is right on target.\u00a0 Yesterday, I had a co-worker tell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-habakkuk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}