This summer caught me by surprise by the social upheaval, divisive language, and violence, on top of the realities of pandemic living. In the early weeks of June, I felt myself shutting down, pulling inward, and wanting to never interact with another person. I felt deeply conflicted by what I was viewing on the screen. Drawing inward seemed the best option, succumbing to the sense of powerlessness I felt. But something changed as I realized that as a disciple of Christ, I had no business giving up to despair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I couldn’t solve the problems around me. I couldn’t hasten my healing from surgery. But I could be a voice of faith in every conversation. I could also declare my faith by showing up for people more often. I could do the work to try to understand another point of view. I could speak plainly about the goodness of God. When someone asked how terrible my health was, giving me an opportunity to complain, I could talk instead about angels and peace and God’s love. I squared my shoulders to continue writing here. Has any of this made a difference? I don’t know for others, but for myself, it was a pivotal decision to be counted as a light that keeps shining in Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind<\/em>. -2 Timothy 1:7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This summer caught me by surprise by the social upheaval, divisive language, and violence, on top of the realities of pandemic living. In the early weeks of June, I felt myself shutting down, pulling inward, and wanting to never interact with another person. I felt deeply conflicted by what I was viewing on the screen. … Continue reading A light that keeps shining in Christ<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,39,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jesus-christ","category-joy","category-life-according-to-angela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18464"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18484,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18464\/revisions\/18484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}