{"id":2341,"date":"2010-12-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2010\/12\/believe-without-seeing.html"},"modified":"2010-12-09T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T10:00:00","slug":"believe-without-seeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/12\/believe-without-seeing.html","title":{"rendered":"Believe Without Seeing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"miracle on 34th street.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/71\/import\/imgs\/miracle%20on%2034th%20street.jpeg\" width=\"261\" height=\"193\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span>All the Christmas movies&#8211;from the classic &#8220;Miracle on 34th Street&#8221; to &#8220;The Year Without a Santa Claus&#8221; preach a common message: faith is about believing without seeing.<\/p>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In our family favorite, &#8220;Elf,&#8221; Santa&#8217;s sleigh, fueled by Christmas spirit, crashes into Central Park in New York City. In order to convince people to believe in Santa, young Michael (Daniel Tay) steals Santa&#8217;s logbook of Christmas wishes to show a news reporter. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People believing after they&#8217;ve seen proof of me doesn&#8217;t count,&#8221; Santa explains. &#8220;Christmas spirit is about believing without seeing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faith in Jesus operates the same way. In fact, the risen Christ tells Thomas the Twin (1 Peter 1:3-9) pretty much the same thing Santa told Michael: &#8220;Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a depressive, I have to believe. Even when I don&#8217;t see. When, like Thomas, I stretch out my hand to touch the side of Jesus but all I feel is more pain. I go on believing. Because my life depends on it.<\/p>\n<p><i>*&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beyondblue1\">Click here to <b>subscribe to Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/thereseborchard\">click here to follow Therese on <b>Twitter<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/beyond_blue\">click here to join <b>Group Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a>, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All the Christmas movies&#8211;from the classic &#8220;Miracle on 34th Street&#8221; to &#8220;The Year Without a Santa Claus&#8221; preach a common message: faith is about believing without seeing. &nbsp; In our family favorite, &#8220;Elf,&#8221; Santa&#8217;s sleigh, fueled by Christmas spirit, crashes into Central Park in New York City. In order to convince people to believe in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Believe Without Seeing - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/12\/believe-without-seeing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Believe Without Seeing - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All the Christmas movies&#8211;from the classic &#8220;Miracle on 34th Street&#8221; to &#8220;The Year Without a Santa Claus&#8221; preach a common message: faith is about believing without seeing. &nbsp; In our family favorite, &#8220;Elf,&#8221; Santa&#8217;s sleigh, fueled by Christmas spirit, crashes into Central Park in New York City. 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