{"id":538,"date":"2021-12-15T12:40:51","date_gmt":"2021-12-15T12:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/?p=538"},"modified":"2021-12-15T12:43:28","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T12:43:28","slug":"christmas-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/christmas-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have been rocked by so much over the last year but in just the last few weeks, it&#8217;s been especially hard.\u00a0 First storm Arwen knocked out power for more than a few days.\u00a0 Then the Omicron variant lowered hopes and expectations for the second year.\u00a0 But worse than that is the loss of friends, family and neighbours who have been shining lights to the world.\u00a0 This is the hardest blow and we are suffering this Christmas.\u00a0 Words cannot express the deep mourning that accompanies our loss.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a message from Handel&#8217;s Messiah which is the only fitting response to our situation:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/83jCTO8N0K4\" width=\"1097\" height=\"617\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>From Psalm 85: 10-13 we have hope for the future:<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"en-NIV-15282\" class=\"text Ps-85-10\">Love and faithfulness\u00a0meet together;<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Ps-85-10\">righteousness\u00a0and peace kiss each other.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span id=\"en-NIV-15283\" class=\"text Ps-85-11\"><sup class=\"versenum\">11\u00a0<\/sup>Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Ps-85-11\">and righteousness\u00a0looks down from heaven.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span id=\"en-NIV-15284\" class=\"text Ps-85-12\"><sup class=\"versenum\">12\u00a0<\/sup>The\u00a0<span class=\"small-caps\">Lord<\/span>\u00a0will indeed give what is good,<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Ps-85-12\">and our land will yield\u00a0its harvest.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span id=\"en-NIV-15285\" class=\"text Ps-85-13\"><sup class=\"versenum\">13\u00a0<\/sup>Righteousness goes before him<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"text Ps-85-13\">and prepares the way for his steps.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The blessing of hope, love, joy and peace in Christ be with you all. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have been rocked by so much over the last year but in just the last few weeks, it&#8217;s been especially hard.\u00a0 First storm Arwen knocked out power for more than a few days.\u00a0 Then the Omicron variant lowered hopes and expectations for the second year.\u00a0 But worse than that is the loss of friends, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/standrewsconiston.org.uk\/prayerandpraise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}