{"id":134,"date":"2008-12-11T15:37:24","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T15:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html"},"modified":"2008-12-11T15:37:24","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T15:37:24","slug":"a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html","title":{"rendered":"A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A Small Gift from ATOE.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/MarthaWilliamson\/A%20Small%20Gift%20from%20ATOE.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span>Happy December, dear Friends!<br \/>\nIf your month is anything like mine, it&#8217;s busy, busy, busy.  The economic crisis has challenged us all to downsize and re-think gift-giving, which has been a good thing, I think.  It forces me to be more creative and more personal.  Instead of the shiny store-bought presents for family and friends, we are making a gift book for everyone on our list this year.  (Oops, I think I just gave away the surprise!).  Oh, well, I won&#8217;t mention what the book is about, okay?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nAnd we have a little holiday surprise for you, too. We&#8217;ll be sending you some extra holiday videos between now and New Year&#8217;s.  Most of them are responses to some of the most powerful comments we&#8217;ve received from you in the last few weeks.  I hope you are blessed by them and maybe even inspired to pass them along, just in case you know someone else who could use a touch of encouragement this season.<br \/>\nIt was just a year ago that A Touch of Encouragement premiered on Beliefnet.com.  Thanks to you, it has become the #1 video destination on Beliefnet and has continued to grow and grow.  Sharing my stories of faith and inspiration with you has been a deeply humbling privilege and every day I have been blessed by your own stories, your prayers, your faith, and your courage.  Truly our new website family has been God&#8217;s gift to me in 2008.<br \/>\nSending along warm wishes for a blessed Christmas season!<br \/>\nLove to all,<br \/>\nMartha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy December, dear Friends! If your month is anything like mine, it&#8217;s busy, busy, busy. The economic crisis has challenged us all to downsize and re-think gift-giving, which has been a good thing, I think. It forces me to be more creative and more personal. Instead of the shiny store-bought presents for family and friends,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement - A Touch of Encouragement<\/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\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement - A Touch of Encouragement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Happy December, dear Friends! If your month is anything like mine, it&#8217;s busy, busy, busy. The economic crisis has challenged us all to downsize and re-think gift-giving, which has been a good thing, I think. It forces me to be more creative and more personal. Instead of the shiny store-bought presents for family and friends,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Touch of Encouragement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-11T15:37:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/MarthaWilliamson\/A%20Small%20Gift%20from%20ATOE.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brandi Harkonen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement - A Touch of Encouragement","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement - A Touch of Encouragement","og_description":"Happy December, dear Friends! If your month is anything like mine, it&#8217;s busy, busy, busy. The economic crisis has challenged us all to downsize and re-think gift-giving, which has been a good thing, I think. It forces me to be more creative and more personal. Instead of the shiny store-bought presents for family and friends,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html","og_site_name":"A Touch of Encouragement","article_published_time":"2008-12-11T15:37:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/MarthaWilliamson\/A%20Small%20Gift%20from%20ATOE.jpg"}],"author":"Brandi Harkonen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/marthawilliamson\/2008\/12\/a-small-gift-from-a-touch-of-e.html","name":"A Small Gift from A Touch of Encouragement - A Touch of 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