{"id":16342,"date":"2013-12-19T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T06:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=16342"},"modified":"2013-12-19T08:06:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T14:06:38","slug":"josephs-lullaby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/12\/19\/josephs-lullaby\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph&#8217;s Lullaby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/gchcarolsbloggraphic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15999\" alt=\"gchcarolsbloggraphic\" src=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/gchcarolsbloggraphic.jpg\" width=\"568\" height=\"298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/gchcarolsbloggraphic.jpg 568w, https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/gchcarolsbloggraphic-300x157.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>During the Christmas season, I often think of Mary.\u00a0 I place myself in Mary\u2019s shoes and consider how scared and confused and undoubtedly honored she must have felt that God had chosen her to carry baby Jesus for nine months and then to be His mother while on this earth.\u00a0 Just as Mary was chosen by God, Joseph was chosen to be Jesus\u2019 earthly father.\u00a0 I let this part of Christmas slip by until I listened to <span style=\"color: #8b2c3d;\"><strong><em>Joseph\u2019s Lullaby<\/em><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Put yourself in Joseph\u2019s place, as you close your eyes and listen to these words\u2026<\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pNpsHJIIQSg\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"color: #841e2a;\">I believe the Glory of Heaven is lying in my arms tonight.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em><span style=\"color: #841e2a;\">Lord, I ask that He for just this moment simply be my child.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Joseph&#8217;s Lullaby\u00a0 ~ Mercy Me<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These have to be my two favorite lines throughout the whole song.\u00a0 I can only imagine how Joseph must have felt knowing the Glory of Heaven was lying in his arms that night.\u00a0 This song has challenged me to read through the Christmas Story from Joseph&#8217;s perspective.\u00a0 When Joseph learned about Mary\u2019s pregnancy, he did not want to publicly humiliate her so he decided he was going to break off their engagement.\u00a0 How heartbreaking of a thought for him, but one which shines his true character through and through.\u00a0 Mary was someone Joseph loved dearly.\u00a0 They were planning to spend their life together and now this dream vanished before him&#8212;or so he thought until the angel appeared before him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,<br \/>\n&#8220;Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,<br \/>\nbecause what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.<br \/>\nShe will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,<br \/>\nbecause he will save his people from their sin.&#8221;<br \/>\nMatthew 1:20-21<\/p>\n<p>With confirmation from the angel, that Joseph was supposed to keep their engagement, Mary and Joseph traveled the long, nine-month road placed before them which led to that awe-filled moment where Joseph reached out into the Glory of Heaven.<\/p>\n<p>I believe we can take a piece of Joseph&#8217;s journey for ourselves.\u00a0 Just as Joseph held the Glory of Heaven in his arms, we hold the Glory of Heaven in our hearts with us everywhere we go.\u00a0 Let us never take for granted this precious Gift we have been given.\u00a0 Not for one moment should we ever rush what God is doing in our lives at this moment.\u00a0 For what He is doing now is preparing us for our very own awe-filled moment with\u00a0Him in Heaven one day. Until that face-to-face encounter takes place, let us just be His child.\u00a0 Let us just be still and know that He is God and know that in what may seem like our momentary troubles God is achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs it all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.<br \/>\nFor momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,<br \/>\nwhile we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2 Corinthians 4:16-18<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">It is my sincere prayer that we reach for one thing this Christmas&#8212;the Glory of Heaven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the Christmas season, I often think of Mary.\u00a0 I place myself in Mary\u2019s shoes and consider how scared and confused and undoubtedly honored she must have felt that God had chosen her to carry baby Jesus for nine months and then to be His mother while on this earth.\u00a0 Just as Mary was chosen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15999,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[4843,4663,308,1287,425,4842,4841,4840,4763,4844],"class_list":["post-16342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-womens","tag-angel-visit","tag-christmas-carols","tag-diane-meyers","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-glory-of-heaven","tag-jesus-parents","tag-josephs-lullaby","tag-matthew-120-21","tag-mercyme","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/gchcarolsbloggraphic.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-4fA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16342"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16344,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16342\/revisions\/16344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}