{"id":765,"date":"2021-11-22T20:59:19","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T03:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/?p=765"},"modified":"2022-04-05T17:57:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T23:57:21","slug":"in-the-midst-of-hardship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/in-the-midst-of-hardship\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Midst of Hardship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u200bAmidst all the preparations for the oh-so-special Thanksgiving meal, \u200bI had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some people, the holidays can be very painful. The last few years have been particularly hard for me and my family, especially around the holiday season. Sometimes it seems like I\u2019m faking it. I smile, I laugh, I eat turkey and dressing and play games. How can I let myself enjoy it all when deep down there is so much pain? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel as if I\u2019m waving away the pain, acting as though it never happened. But I have come to realize that enjoying the times I have been given does not mean mindless happiness or dismissing the heartache. When I celebrate Thanksgiving, I’m not acting as though the pain never happened. I can be thankful in spite of it, and I can have joy instead of happiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A while ago, my mom showed me a video or article (I can\u2019t remember where she found it) about the difference between happiness and joy. I remember it saying that happiness is always dependent on circumstances, while joy is about a hope for the future. \u200bDespite my pain or whatever it is going on in my life, God has taken care of me and he has given blessing after blessing, even if it hasn\u2019t always felt that way. I can have hope because I know he will continue to take care of me, and I can celebrate that even through the suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Thanksgiving, I will be thankful in the midst of hardship. I will not dismiss my pain, but I will see the beauty that is still around me. There can be joy and celebration, for there is a much bigger and greater story that I can\u2019t quite see, and that is something to be grateful for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After writing this post, I found this quote by Tim Foreman. I feel like he says what my fumbling words weren’t able to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think hope is not simply looking around and saying that everything\u2019s great – that\u2019s just ridiculous. For hope to have substance, it has to acknowledge the pain. But hope is saying that\u2019s not the final story. It\u2019s not saying pain doesn\u2019t exist, but it\u2019s saying there\u2019s not a period at the end of that sentence. It\u2019s still being written.<\/p>Tim Foreman<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I’d love to hear your opinions on this topic, or if you had any other thoughts about the holidays\/Thanksgiving. On a more fun note, what’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Mine is definitely dressing 😋
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Mattie Grace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u200bAmidst all the preparations for the oh-so-special Thanksgiving meal, \u200bI had a few thoughts that I wanted to share with you. For some people, the holidays can be very painful. The last few years have been particularly hard for me and my family, especially around the holiday season. Sometimes it seems like I\u2019m faking it. I smile, I laugh, I eat turkey and dressing and play games. How can I let myself enjoy it all when deep down there is so much pain? I feel as if I\u2019m waving away the pain, acting as though it never happened. But I have come to realize that enjoying the times I have been given does not mean mindless happiness or dismissing the heartache. When I celebrate Thanksgiving, I’m not acting as though the pain never happened. I can be thankful in spite of it, and I can have joy instead of happiness.  A while ago, my mom showed me a video or article (I can\u2019t remember where she found it) about the difference between happiness and joy. I remember it saying that happiness is always dependent on circumstances, while joy is about a hope for the future. \u200bDespite my pain or whatever it is going on in my life, God has taken care of me and he has given blessing after blessing, even if it hasn\u2019t always felt that way. I can have hope because I know he will continue to take care of me, and I can celebrate that even through the suffering. This Thanksgiving, I will be thankful in the midst of hardship. I will not dismiss my pain, but I will see the beauty that is still around me. There can be joy and celebration, for there is a much bigger and greater story that I can\u2019t quite see, and that is something to be grateful for. After writing this post, I found this quote by Tim Foreman. I feel like he says what my fumbling words weren’t able to. I think hope is not simply looking around and saying that everything\u2019s great – that\u2019s just ridiculous. For hope to have substance, it has to acknowledge the pain. But hope is saying that\u2019s not the final story. It\u2019s not saying pain doesn\u2019t exist, but it\u2019s saying there\u2019s not a period at the end of that sentence. It\u2019s still being written. Tim Foreman I’d love to hear your opinions on this topic, or if you had any other thoughts about the holidays\/Thanksgiving. On a more fun note, what’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? Mine is definitely dressing 😋 – Mattie Grace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,53,47],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-quotes","tag-thanksgiving","tag-thoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20211121_173521-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":460,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/thanksgiving-mishmash\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":0},"title":"Thanksgiving Mishmash","author":"Mattie and Amelia","date":"November 23, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi everyone! Today we'd like to share a few things we put together for Thanksgiving. Though it's a tad random, we hope you enjoy reading this post! Because we wanted to help others give thanks during this Thanksgiving week, we made a printable sheet that you could fill out. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/thanksgiving-mishmash\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20201123_131107-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20201123_131107-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20201123_131107-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20201123_131107-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20201123_131107-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1123,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/morning-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":1},"title":"Morning Thoughts","author":"Mattie Grace","date":"July 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Hello everyone! It's Mattie. Amelia and I talk a lot about seeing the beauty in our everyday lives on this blog. We don't really talk about the darkness that makes looking for the light so important. I wrote a little \"poem\", if you will, and I wanted to share it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"2022\"","block_context":{"text":"2022","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/tag\/2022\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220711_071212-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220711_071212-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220711_071212-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220711_071212-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/20220711_071212-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1093,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/my-summer-writing-goals-and-how-you-could-set-some-too\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":2},"title":"My Summer Writing Goals (and How You Could Set Some Too)","author":"Amelia","date":"May 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi, everyone! This is Amelia today. With school pretty much over and summer on its way, I thought I would talk a little bit about my writing goals for the summer and how I plan to achieve them. I also wanted to talk about how, even if you're not a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"2022\"","block_context":{"text":"2022","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/tag\/2022\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220529_174512-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220529_174512-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220529_174512-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220529_174512-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/20220529_174512-copy-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1220,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/a-few-autumn-favorites\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":3},"title":"A Few Autumn Favorites","author":"Amelia","date":"October 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey everyone!\u00a0 When it came time to sit down and start thinking about this post, I realized I could not conjure up any wise words to give you. So, I thought, \u201cWhy not just gather up some beautiful things to share all in one post?\u201d I really love reading this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"2022\"","block_context":{"text":"2022","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/tag\/2022\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221014_192423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221014_192423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221014_192423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221014_192423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20221014_192423-1-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":870,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/a-little-progress-goes-a-long-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":4},"title":"A Little Progress Goes a Long Way","author":"Mattie Grace","date":"March 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Hello everyone! Mattie writing today.I wanted to share a little about something\u00a0I've been doing recently.\u00a0For the past few months, I have been trying hard to turn two things I want to do into habits. The first is writing. While it may seem strange because I write on this blog, writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"2022\"","block_context":{"text":"2022","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/tag\/2022\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20220320_194747-copy-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20220320_194747-copy-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20220320_194747-copy-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20220320_194747-copy-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/20220320_194747-copy-2-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1287,"url":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/a-reflection-on-january\/","url_meta":{"origin":765,"position":5},"title":"A Reflection on January","author":"Amelia","date":"January 31, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"January\u2026\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but this month has felt almost like three months in one. Sometimes, I don\u2019t like it when time moves slowly, and I wish it would all move faster. But, this month, I have been very grateful for how slow the time has been moving,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"2023\"","block_context":{"text":"2023","link":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/tag\/2023\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jan-post-thumbnail-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jan-post-thumbnail-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jan-post-thumbnail-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jan-post-thumbnail-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/jan-post-thumbnail-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":968,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions\/968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imageidaho.com\/talkingovertea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}