{"id":361,"date":"2010-09-09T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html"},"modified":"2010-09-09T14:00:38","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T14:00:38","slug":"personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html","title":{"rendered":"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the editors over at Patheos recently asked a slate of bloggers to respond to the following question (in 100 words or less):<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><strong><em>When you can&#8217;t drop everything for a year-long spiritual pilgrimage, how\/where do you seek spiritual renewal in times of personal crisis?&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>She asked it in response to Eat, Pray, Love, with the recognition that most of us can&#8217;t fly off to Italy, India, and Bali when our life feels upside down. Here&#8217;s my response:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><i>When my mother-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer, it was hard to trust God. After our daughter was born with Down syndrome, my heart felt too raw to pray. And that was where the body of Christ came in. When my faith is weakest, when the world is at its darkest, when I am not even sure that God exists, I don&#8217;t pray much. My Bible often sits unopened. I don&#8217;t seek out retreats or workshops. Instead, I rely on the prayers of others to carry me back to Jesus. They&#8217;ve brought me home every time.<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">To read more responses to this question, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Resources\/Additional-Resources\/Spiritual-Renewal-in-Times-of-Crisis-How-to-Eat-Pray-Love-Here-and-Now.html\">here<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the editors over at Patheos recently asked a slate of bloggers to respond to the following question (in 100 words or less): When you can&#8217;t drop everything for a year-long spiritual pilgrimage, how\/where do you seek spiritual renewal in times of personal crisis?&nbsp; She asked it in response to Eat, Pray, Love, with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal - 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\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the editors over at Patheos recently asked a slate of bloggers to respond to the following question (in 100 words or less): When you can&#8217;t drop everything for a year-long spiritual pilgrimage, how\/where do you seek spiritual renewal in times of personal crisis?&nbsp; She asked it in response to Eat, Pray, Love, with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-09T14:00:38+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":"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal - 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\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal - Thin Places","og_description":"One of the editors over at Patheos recently asked a slate of bloggers to respond to the following question (in 100 words or less): When you can&#8217;t drop everything for a year-long spiritual pilgrimage, how\/where do you seek spiritual renewal in times of personal crisis?&nbsp; She asked it in response to Eat, Pray, Love, with&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-09-09T14:00:38+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html","name":"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-09-09T14:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-09T14:00:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/personal-crisis-spiritual-renewal.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Personal Crisis, Spiritual Renewal"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?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\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. 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\/361","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=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}