After a fairly bad week pain-wise, it was a struggle getting changed after a shower today. Each time I move or try to bend the pain causes me to growl: I\u2019m a bit self conscious of it, and normally try to suppress it – really my wife shouldn\u2019t have to hear it! But with certain movements it’s involuntary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, I must have had a fleeting thought\u2026\u201dI can\u2019t even get dressed without a fight\u201d. But immediately a sequence of balancing thoughts flashed through my brain: \u201cwow I can still dress myself!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The list goes on, and that is just drawing from my limited interactions with people. Around the world people are struggling with *so much*:<\/p>\n
Murdered relatives, dying parents, abducted children, starving orphans, displaced communities…<\/p>\n
While the list is endless of people who are going through \/ trying to deal with far worse than I, there is something that always humbles me completely…<\/p>\n
I think of a man tortured in every way imaginable: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a political cause or statement. It was something planned long ago, by the loving Creator, for those He loves, those like you\u2026and like me!\u00a0<\/p>\n
No matter what pain you are in, no matter how much you owe, no matter what you are missing or what is weighing you down, you have *so much* to be thankful for. Seriously. His name is Jesus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
#thankYouJesus #thanksgiving<\/p>\n
Here is something written about this Man – God thousands of years ago. Still relevant, deeply revelatory, comforting and inspiring even now. Just think, this is the Man – God that Christmas is meant to be a celebration of: remember, He is coming back!\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nHe was despised and rejected\u2014<\/em>
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.<\/em>
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.<\/em>
He was despised, and we did not care.<\/em>
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;<\/em>
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.<\/em>
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,<\/em>
a punishment for his own sins!<\/em>
But he was pierced for our rebellion,<\/em>
crushed for our sins.<\/em>
He was beaten so we could be whole.<\/em>
He was whipped so we could be healed.<\/em>
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.<\/em>
We have left God\u2019s paths to follow our own.<\/em>
Yet the LORD laid on him<\/em>
the sins of us all.<\/em>
He was oppressed and treated harshly,<\/em>
yet he never said a word.<\/em>
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.<\/em>
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,<\/em>
he did not open his mouth.<\/em>
Unjustly condemned,<\/em>
he was led away.<\/em>
No one cared that he died without descendants,<\/em>
that his life was cut short in midstream.<\/em>
But he was struck down<\/em>
for the rebellion of my people.<\/em>
He had done no wrong<\/em>
and had never deceived anyone.<\/em>
But he was buried like a criminal;<\/em>
he was put in a rich man\u2019s grave.<\/em>
But it was the LORD\u2019s good plan to crush him<\/em>
and cause him grief.<\/em>
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,<\/em>
he will have many descendants.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nIsaiah 53:3-10 (NLT)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes, when we are low or in pain, it can be easy to think we don’t have anything to be thankful for… Nothing could be further from the Truth!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"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":[18],"tags":[134,133,26,159],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-thought","tag-chronic-pain","tag-pain","tag-thanksgiving","tag-thankyoujesus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/screenshotMBP_625.jpg?fit=688%2C792&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasDCW-hu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions\/1086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}