{"id":5894,"date":"2024-11-23T10:13:42","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T16:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/?p=5894"},"modified":"2025-01-18T11:10:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T17:10:24","slug":"ponderings-from-pastor-patti-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/2024\/11\/23\/ponderings-from-pastor-patti-december\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponderings from Pastor Patti &#8211; December 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p><strong><em>\u201cChrist may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<strong>\u2014 Ephesians 3:17\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This past month, we gathered, opened the word in worship, and pondered on the gift of Love \u2026 And the movement of God\u2019s love <em>down<\/em> upon us, <em>in<\/em> us, and flowing <em>out<\/em> of us. What we did not focus on as much is what is at the heart of love \u2013 hope.\u00a0 But think about what would happen to hope without God\u2019s love.\u00a0 Cultivating Hope is the Synod focus this month, and I want us to connect the movement of God\u2019s love with the hope that is made possible through Emanuel \u2013 God with Us.\u00a0 As we enter this very special season of Advent and Christmas this year, let us be mindful that this is a time of the year when many people experience more darkness (literally with the days losing daylight, and figuratively with sadness and disappointment).\u00a0 And let us ask the question of ourselves: \u201cHow can I be light in the darkness?\u201d\u00a0 How can I be a spark of hope in this world filled with darkness and difficulty for so many?<\/p>\n<p>We are grounded in this love of Christ, especially in this season of Advent and Christmas.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard not to see it and feel it with all the decorations of holly bringing a sign of life into a world that is entering into hibernation, with all the decorations of lights and stars and angels to remind us of the love that carries and supports us and guides us through the busyness of this time of year.<\/p>\n<p>I hope that you can find time this year to stop in the midst\u2026and ponder on the light, and the love, and the hope that comes in the birth of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013 Pastor Patti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cChrist may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 Ephesians 3:17\u2014 This past month, we gathered, opened the word in worship, and pondered on the gift of Love \u2026 And the movement of God\u2019s love down upon us, in us, and flowing out of us. What [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8agoY-1x4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5918,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5894\/revisions\/5918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}