{"id":7198,"date":"2021-06-22T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/?p=7198"},"modified":"2021-06-20T14:37:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T18:37:16","slug":"words-of-encouragement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/words-of-encouragement\/","title":{"rendered":"Words of Encouragement!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe title=\"Words of Encouragement! 6\/22\/21\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=ctmgu-106c1b1-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=1&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Arial&#038;skin=1&#038;btn-skin=7\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Steven Morris was a special needs child in Mrs. Bernaducci&#8217;s class. Steven was a thin African-American boy who was blind.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His physical disability negatively impacted his self-esteem. However, over a period of time, the teacher realized that Steven had exceptional hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>One day she put the class mascot, a mouse, into the trash can. The scratching noise created a minor panic until Steven located the mouse. Mrs. Bernaducci exclaimed:&nbsp;<em>&#8220;Steven, you are truly a wonder.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nickname caught on. The next year little Stevie Wonder, full of a sense of his own value, began playing the piano. Stevie\u00a0<strong><em>&#8216;Wonder&#8217;<\/em><\/strong> would go on to influence and change American music all because of Mrs. Bernaducci&#8217;s faith in him and her encouragement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>We all need that kind of encouragement. Especially in times like we are going through now. Times that try our souls. Times that cause us stress and&nbsp;uncertainty. Times when we want some words of direction from God\u2026..but God seems to be silent.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>We need a word of encouragement. And that&#8217;s what we get when we once again share in the Eucharist. A little bit of bread reminds us that Christ died for us to prove God&#8217;s love for us.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks to Billy D. Strayhorn<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Five years ago I gave a lot of encouragement to a young man named Jeremy who was thinking about going into the seminary. I sat down with Jeremy a number of times and shared my personal ups and downs with being a priest. I hoped and prayed that I had inspired Jeremy and not scared him from going into the seminary. For various health reasons I\u2019ve had (including the pandemic), I have had no contact with him over these last five years.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>On Saturday, June 19<sup>th<\/sup>, I walked into a different church for a funeral. The first person who came up and greeted me was Jeremy, now \u201c<\/em><\/strong><strong>Father Jeremy<em>.\u201d He was just ordained a priest on May 8<sup>th<\/sup>!&nbsp;He told me this was his first assignment as a priest. I was amazed!! I had tears in my eyes! So often all it takes is some encouragement and a lot of grace from God.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Who might YOU encourage who needs YOUR support right now in their life?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>GOD DESIGNED ME.\u00a0\u00a0CREATED ME.\u00a0BLESSES ME.\u00a0\u00a0HEALS ME.\u00a0\u00a0DEFENDS ME.\u00a0FORGIVES ME.\u00a0\u00a0LOVES ME!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Morris was a special needs child in Mrs. Bernaducci&#8217;s class. Steven was a thin African-American boy who was blind.&nbsp; His physical disability negatively impacted his self-esteem. However, over a period of time, the teacher realized that Steven had exceptional hearing. One day she put the class mascot, a mouse, into the trash can. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"qubely_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"ocean-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"ocean-thumb-ml":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"ocean-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"qubely_landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"qubely_portrait":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help.png",249,166,false],"qubely_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help-140x100.png",140,100,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Here-to-Help-45x45.png",45,45,true]},"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Medard Laz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/author\/medlaz\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/category\/daily-treats\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Daily Treats<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"Steven Morris was a special needs child in Mrs. Bernaducci&#8217;s class. Steven was a thin African-American boy who was blind.&nbsp; His physical disability negatively impacted his self-esteem. However, over a period of time, the teacher realized that Steven had exceptional hearing. One day she put the class mascot, a mouse, into the trash can. The&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}