{"id":260,"date":"2009-12-04T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html"},"modified":"2009-12-04T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T06:00:00","slug":"advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney<\/p>\n<p><strong>Friday, the first week of Advent<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><em>&#8220;And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the Inn.&#8221; Luke 2:7<\/em><\/div>\n<div><em><\/em>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>One of the biggest myths that I bought into as a new believer was that the Christian life was a seamless journey to heaven, and Jesus would make everything better. I may have even had a t-shirt with what looked like the Coca Cola logo that proclaimed as much. While it&#8217;s true that Jesus has made everything better, my journey to meet Him face to face has been far from seamless. Even Jesus had it rough: He was conceived by an unwed teen; the king put a contract out on him while His mother was pregnant, and He was born in a filthy stable because there was no room in the Inn for a woman ripe with child; all because of a government-mandated event. Yet we find no evidence that the Holy Family complained bitterly about their fate. Does their response mirror your own, not just to the challenges, but tribulations of life? <\/p>\n<div><strong>Patient Lord and Master, <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I don&#8217;t know how to suffer. I&#8217;m afraid to even have this conversation with You for fear that more pain and hardship will come my way. But this is silliness. You&#8217;ve already told us in the Gospels that in this world we would have tribulations. Help me to remember that You are with me, and that you will not put more suffering on me than I can bear. Lord, you endured far more than I will ever have to. Help me to look upon You always, and take strength for my journey from Your example. When I am cowering in fear of the darkness of life, illuminate me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Come, Lord Jesus.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney Friday, the first week of Advent &#8220;And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the Inn.&#8221; Luke 2:7 &nbsp; One of the biggest myths that I bought into as a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,48,14,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-advent-prayers","category-bible","category-jesus"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation<\/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\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Claudia Mair Burney Friday, the first week of Advent &#8220;And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the Inn.&#8221; Luke 2:7 &nbsp; One of the biggest myths that I bought into as a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-04T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation","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\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation","og_description":"By Claudia Mair Burney Friday, the first week of Advent &#8220;And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the Inn.&#8221; Luke 2:7 &nbsp; One of the biggest myths that I bought into as a&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html","og_site_name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","article_published_time":"2009-12-04T06:00:00+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html","name":"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-04T06:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-04T06:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-enduring-tribulation.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Advent Prayer: Enduring Tribulation"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/","name":"Prayer, Plain and Simple","description":"Prayer, Daily Prayer, Simple Prayers, Quick Prayers, Prayer Requests","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}