{"id":683,"date":"2016-09-13T20:44:37","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T01:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/?p=683"},"modified":"2016-09-13T20:44:37","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T01:44:37","slug":"looking-closely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html","title":{"rendered":"Looking closely"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s hard to see what&#8217;s really in front of you sometimes. We can focus our attention for so long <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-650 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/388\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_4294\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>on one particular aspect of our lives that we lose sight of all the glorious gifts that surround us. You have to look harder sometimes at the big things than the little things.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at this photograph you have to almost strain your eyes to see the mountains beyond the rows and rows of houses and the sun peeking through the clouds kind of obscures their view.<\/p>\n<p>But if we spend so much time looking for the mountains, we may miss the beautiful sunset that surrounds them.<\/p>\n<p>What are you looking at in your life right now that is grabbing all your attention? Is there a time, even just a moment, that you will feel comfortable enough to look away &#8212; and look closely at the bigger gift of life before you? Try it this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes it&#8217;s hard to see what&#8217;s really in front of you sometimes. We can focus our attention for so long on one particular aspect of our lives that we lose sight of all the glorious gifts that surround us. You have to look harder sometimes at the big things than the little things. Looking at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Looking closely - Through the Lens of Faith<\/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\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Looking closely - Through the Lens of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes it&#8217;s hard to see what&#8217;s really in front of you sometimes. We can focus our attention for so long on one particular aspect of our lives that we lose sight of all the glorious gifts that surround us. You have to look harder sometimes at the big things than the little things. Looking at&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Through the Lens of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-14T01:44:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"eelliott\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Looking closely - Through the Lens of Faith","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\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Looking closely - Through the Lens of Faith","og_description":"Sometimes it&#8217;s hard to see what&#8217;s really in front of you sometimes. We can focus our attention for so long on one particular aspect of our lives that we lose sight of all the glorious gifts that surround us. You have to look harder sometimes at the big things than the little things. Looking at&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html","og_site_name":"Through the Lens of Faith","article_published_time":"2016-09-14T01:44:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg"}],"author":"eelliott","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html","name":"Looking closely - Through the Lens of Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg","datePublished":"2016-09-14T01:44:37+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-14T01:44:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#\/schema\/person\/3a91f7335d342e05f30c3f30934c63b2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/files\/2016\/07\/IMG_4294-e1473813147261-225x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/2016\/09\/looking-closely.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Looking closely"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/","name":"Through the Lens of Faith","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Elizabeth Elliott","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/?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\/throughthelensoffaith\/#\/schema\/person\/3a91f7335d342e05f30c3f30934c63b2","name":"eelliott","description":"Elizabeth Elliott is a staff writer at the Arlington Catholic Herald and a freelance writer. 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She has written for America Magazine, Busted Halo and several other publications.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/author\/eelliott"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/throughthelensoffaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}