{"id":170,"date":"2009-11-07T14:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-07T14:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/11\/the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.html"},"modified":"2009-11-07T14:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-07T14:11:00","slug":"the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/11\/the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.html","title":{"rendered":"The God who is With us and For Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Margot Starbuck<\/a>, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father who does not Fail<\/a>, spoke at our church last night. She brought a banner–about twelve feet high and six wide–constructed of brightly colored and different patterned squares with the words, “I am the one who is WITH YOU and FOR YOU.” <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
She explained that it took her a long time to recognize that God is FOR us, cheering us on, believing that we are valuable, naming us his beloved. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Later, she realized that God also is WITH us, physically present, particularly through the words and deeds of other people in our lives. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There are people, she said, who are FOR us, but not WITH us, cheerleaders at a distance. And others who are WITH us, but not FOR us, criticizing us up close. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And then she suggested that whenever we read a Psalm and see the word LORD in all caps (which in the Hebrew is YHWH), substitute the phrase, “I am the one who is with you and for you.” <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What a difference it would make if we believed it.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margot Starbuck, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father who does not Fail, spoke at our church last night. She brought a banner–about twelve feet high and six wide–constructed of brightly colored and different patterned squares with the words, “I am the one who is WITH YOU and FOR YOU.”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"\nThe God who is With us and For Us - Thin Places<\/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\/thinplaces\/2009\/11\/the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The God who is With us and For Us - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Margot Starbuck, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father who does not Fail, spoke at our church last night. She brought a banner–about twelve feet high and six wide–constructed of brightly colored and different patterned squares with the words, “I am the one who is WITH YOU and FOR YOU.”…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/11\/the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-07T14:11:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The God who is With us and For Us - Thin Places","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\/thinplaces\/2009\/11\/the-god-who-is-with-us-and-for-us.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The God who is With us and For Us - Thin Places","og_description":"Margot Starbuck, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father who does not Fail, spoke at our church last night. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}