{"id":19460,"date":"2017-12-26T16:24:50","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T16:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=19460"},"modified":"2017-12-26T16:24:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T16:24:57","slug":"christmas-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=19460","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"December<\/p>\n

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I hope your Christmas day was\u00a0wonderful! \u00a0Mine sure was, and I would\u00a0 love to share with you some of the reason the entire Christmas season has been great for me this year!<\/p>\n

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FIRST:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 I celebrated the birth of a Savior, a friend, a guide and confidant. \u00a0When you accept Christ as your Savior and Lord, your life will never be the same again. \u00a0I would not want to even contemplate where my life would have ended up without Him by my side. \u00a0This alone is reason for the greatest of celebrations!<\/p>\n

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SECOND:<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0The closeness of family. \u00a0Sherelene and I have had the great pleasure of being with our children and their families through out the last two weeks! \u00a0The older I get the more family means to me, and the greater the pleasure of being with them!<\/p>\n

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THIRD:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0Drawing close during times of difficulty. \u00a0Wes’s battle with cancer and Jim and Sue’s battle with cancer and the loss of Sue have both re-focused my life. \u00a02017 was time of deep prayer and kneeling before God, praying for family and dear friends. \u00a0In addition to Wes and Sue, I had several other wonderful friends all battling various forms of cancer and it was a year of constant lifting them and their families up to the Lord. \u00a0It is revealing how much closer we draw to those that we are in constant prayer for!<\/p>\n

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FOURTH:<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0The renewal of friendships. \u00a0During the holidays you often gather with old friends and I had a great breakfast with Jim Haverstock, Jim Begley, Brian Stefl and Wes on Christmas eve, eve morning, what a joy to be with such dear friends and celebrate our wonderful\u00a0times together over the years, and feel great for Wes and comfort Jim Haverstock! \u00a0The meaning of real friendship, pulling together for each other!<\/p>\n

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FIFTH:<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0Making future plans. \u00a0While this is by far the least important part of my personal Christmas celebration, the future is still something we need to plan for it. Years ago when I first became aware of Scott Kelby I went to his blog and was suprised to find a whole section on his favorite movies, songs, hobbys, and lots of other personal stuff. \u00a0At first I thought it was a little narcissistic, but on further thought, and after reading all of \u00a0it, I thought it was actually pretty cool, I was interested in Scott, the person, and I expect lots of others were too, so what follows may be a little like that.<\/p>\n

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What’s next for me<\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0In 2018 I have 10 workshops scheduled with Jack, and will do a few smaller events for Fuji though out the year. \u00a0I’m thinking in 2019, I will start to cut back my travel to something like half what it has been and will be this coming year. \u00a0If I’m home more what will I do with the extra time? \u00a0More time in the word, more prayer time, and more personal outreach to the lost. Of course personal shooting and study will always be a big part of my life. Photography for the sheer joy of shooting and processin, (by-the-way I plan to spend this winer mastering Luminar 2018 to replace Photoshop and Lightroom as my main way of post processing!!!). \u00a0I hope to teach more on line and that will be a focus as well. \u00a0I plan to get a puppy, I think a golden retriever, and will name him Chester (in honor of the movie,\u00a0The Kid). He will be come my best buddy, and I will take him everywhere with me! \u00a0I’ve also started to seriously study cooking. \u00a0I’ve invested in the proper tools and some good books and an online course on cooking and have already developed some new skills!!! \u00a0My goals is to invite guests into our home and serve them some wonderful food! \u00a0My family has had some master\u00a0cooks and I would like to join their ranks!<\/p>\n

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So, I hope you had a wonderful and meaningful Christmas and will enjoy a blessed New year!<\/p>\n

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Blessings,<\/p>\n

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the pilgrim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I hope your Christmas day was\u00a0wonderful! \u00a0Mine sure was, and I would\u00a0 love to share with you some of the reason the entire Christmas season has been great for me this year!   FIRST:\u00a0 I celebrated the birth of a Savior, a friend, a guide and confidant. \u00a0When you accept Christ as your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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-19460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19464,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19460\/revisions\/19464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}