{"id":23383,"date":"2014-12-15T00:20:45","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=23383"},"modified":"2014-12-14T22:03:47","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T03:03:47","slug":"joy-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/15\/joy-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy of Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gchSHadventjoygraphic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You love Him even though you have never seen Him.
\nThough you do not see Him, you trust Him;
\nand even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy<\/span>.
\nYour reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of your souls.
\n1 Peter 1:8-9<\/p>\n

My heart was filled with joy<\/span> this past Sunday (December 7). Our daughter turned four just a little over a month ago. Now, at our church, they have nursery for those 4 and under during early and late services. We usually attend the early service. (Yes, I manage to get a 4-year-old and 6-year-old up early on Sunday mornings in order to make 8 am church service.) I decided to try something this past Sunday with our daughter…and I hoped that it would not backfire on me.<\/p>\n

Now as I was saying, our daughter just turned 4. I decided to take her with us to \u201cbig\u201d church this Sunday to see how she would do. I was nervous thinking she would be loud and wiggly like a lot of kids. However, I had faith. I also made sure to have a coloring book and pad of paper available for her to draw on to keep her busy. She surprised me, though. She tried to sing the first chorus with us, and the only major thing she did was she was a little wiggly and curious. She never did get loud. My heart really filled for joy<\/span> when she put our Lottie Moon offering in the offering plate. It was the joy<\/span> of being a parent and watching my child learn.<\/p>\n

I can only imagine the amount of joy<\/span> that Mary felt that first Christmas night. Her firstborn Son was born, but also her Savior was born. She was overjoy<\/span>ed that she had been chosen to be His mother. She would have the joy<\/span> of watching Him grow and mature into adulthood. She already knew the pain and anguish that would come with being His mother, but she trusted God. Mary put her whole faith in God. By putting her faith in God, Mary knew that she was given a most glorious gift.<\/p>\n

Just as Mary had faith in God, we should have faith as well. Our faith in Jesus can bring us joy<\/span> all year long\u2014not just during this time of the year. Our reward for trusting in Him and believing that He died on the Cross for us is the saving of our souls when Jesus returns. We will go to Heaven with Him and celebrate in great joy<\/span> and peace.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 \u00a0\u2665 \u00a0~ \u00a0\u271d \u00a0~ \u00a0\u2605\u00a0 \u00a0 *<\/span><\/h4>\n

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the birth of Your Son. Without Him we would be nothing. Thank You for the joy<\/span> of watching our own children grow and for the chance to lead them in them in the right direction\u2014to You. Watching them and guiding them brings its own joy<\/span>. In Jesus\u2019 name, Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You love Him even though you have never seen Him. Though you do not see Him, you trust Him; and even now you are happy with a glorious, inexpressible joy. Your reward for trusting Him will be the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9 My heart was filled with joy this past Sunday (December […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":23370,"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":[3020],"tags":[6057,8014,4651,1287,425,8022,577,3211],"class_list":["post-23383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-1-peter-18-9","tag-3rd-week-of-advent","tag-advent","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-jesus-brings-us-joy","tag-joy","tag-laura-pattillo","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/gchSHadventjoygraphic.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-659","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23383","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\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23383"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23398,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23383\/revisions\/23398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}