{"id":4194,"date":"2011-12-26T15:39:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T15:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=4194"},"modified":"2011-12-26T15:44:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T15:44:16","slug":"family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=4194","title":{"rendered":"Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After celebrating His birth the next best thing about Christmas is family! \u00a0This year our family in Florida, our oldest sone Scott and his wife Diane and my two grandchildren hannah and Ben, plus their foreign exchange student Ramon Bosek all drove up for the week. \u00a0Our other two children Catherine (our youngest), her husband Clint, and their two children, Cassidy and Cade, and our middle child, our son Wesley, his wife Rhonda, and their two children Elijah and Abigail all were present! \u00a0We had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas day, lots of great food, too much actually, and special time together. \u00a0I try my very best to remember each day to think about the countless things I have to be thankful for, and wonderful family is at the top of the earthly list.<\/p>\n

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When I was a young man I was very materialistic. \u00a0Christmas was very much about presents. \u00a0What I wanted was always on my mind. \u00a0I’m certainly not saying that I have lost all attachment to “things”, but there order of importance has definitely shifted! \u00a0While I still love cameras and lenses, nice clothes and fine meals, I see them in God’s perspective now. \u00a0He wants us to own what we need and even what we want, He doesn’t want us to be “owned by” any of those things. \u00a0You may remember back a few weeks ago my sharing that Sherelene and I came home form a weekend trip to find our kitchen cabinets, one long wall of them, lying upside down in the floor, with a lot of contensts smashed and destroyed. \u00a0First we were shocked, but then something amazing happened, we stood in our kitchen and prayed together, not becasue we were \u00a0decimated by the loss, but because we knew it was ll in God’s hands and He would be faithful to help us put it all back together. \u00a0I read a wonderful book many years ago by Merlin Caruthers, called Prison to Praise. \u00a0In the book Chaplain Caruthers, he was an army Chaplain, explained that through scripture he had learned to praise God in all things, both good and bad and he shared some of the miraculous things that had happened after \u00a0He had praised God in tough situations. \u00a0It does say in scripture, “In all things give thanks, for this is the will of God….”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Over the next several years I learned to praise Him in all things, and I have discovered the rewards of this act of obedience, and it \u00a0has yielded amazing results in my own life. \u00a0The principle is really pretty simple;<\/p>\n

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1. \u00a0God wants us to trust Him, to know that He only wants what is best for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

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2. \u00a0God has promised us over and over in scripture that He will not let anything happen that He will not use for our growth, and instruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

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3. \u00a0if God allows us to find ourselves in a troubling or difficult circumstances and we praise Him for it, it is saysing to Him, “From my perspective this is a bad thing, buyt you have promised me you will never allow anything into my life that will not, eventually, be for my good. \u00a0So I\u00a0will thank you and praise you now for your faithfulness!”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Just before the family arrived, the cabinets had been repaired and re-installed, the broken glasses and dishes had been replaced. \u00a0We stood int he kitchen and looked at our restored cabinets and our Christmas decorations and talked about how glad we were that we \u00a0dealt with this trying circumstance in the right way, God’s way, to trust Him. \u00a0Falling kitchen cabinets, in the big picture, \u00a0is not as very important event, but it is a chance to practice trusting in Him, for when we face the really challenging time sin life. \u00a0Sherelene and I have already faced th loss of all our grandparents and parents, those are difficult times, but the same principle worked for us then, we knew God was in control, that he had a plan, and that He had done what best for them, we could find complete peace in knowing the truth of that!<\/p>\n

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The most fantastic thing about a walk with Him is knowing He is in control, that you can trust Him, and He will get you through the toughest times!<\/p>\n

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Today;s Prayer: \u00a0 “Thank you Father that you love us so much, and you control all the circumstances around us, that they may make us stronger, wiser, and most important of all, \u00a0more dependent on You!<\/span><\/p>\n

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the pilgrim<\/p>\n

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By-The-Way, the photograph of my family above was a gift from Homer and Terri Fortney, my brother an sister-in-law. \u00a0Terri is an incredible photographers ands she kindly came to our home back in August at another family gathering and shot all these images an then \u00a0stitched them together. \u00a0If you have an interest \u00a0in portrait work, you must visit her website, prepared to have your socks knocked off!!! \u00a0 \u00a0http:\/\/www.fortneyphotographystudio.com\/<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  After celebrating His birth the next best thing about Christmas is family! \u00a0This year our family in Florida, our oldest sone Scott and his wife Diane and my two grandchildren hannah and Ben, plus their foreign exchange student Ramon Bosek all drove up for the week. \u00a0Our other two children Catherine (our youngest), her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194","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=4194"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4198,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4194\/revisions\/4198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}