{"id":209,"date":"2011-09-02T10:43:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T16:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/casashalom.net\/potters\/?p=209"},"modified":"2012-05-16T18:30:39","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T00:30:39","slug":"brents-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Brent&#8217;s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/?attachment_id=682\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-682\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"b_birthday_2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/b_birthday_2011-300x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a>Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Besides a few grey hairs that have started to appear, I don\u2019t feel any older! But this birthday has been a good time for me to think and reflect over how God\u2019s blessed my life in so many ways.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He blessed me with incredible parents and family, and through them He introduced His son Jesus to me.<\/li>\n<li>Ten years ago He changed the course of my life when He brought me for the first time to Guatemala. The kids and the country captured my heart, and I was never the same again. He opened my eyes and gave me a vision and a purpose. <em>I was forever changed<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Five years ago a quick trip to Guatemala to visit the kids turned into a many month stay at Casa Shalom. During that time I met my future wife Yuliza who had started to work there as a teacher.<\/li>\n<li>Almost two years ago Yuliza and I were married. God provided me an incredible wife and helpmate, and now we\u2019re working side-by-side in Guatemala with the children.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I really feel like my life is far more wonderful than I could ever have hoped for!<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite verses for a long time has been Jeremiah 29:11:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cFor I know the plans I have for you,\u201d declares the Lord, \u201cplans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This verse gives me so much hope and allows me to rest assured that God cares for me. But the next two verses have become even more important to me:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThen you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s love and care for us is fundamental for every Christian, but these two verses give us purpose and a plan: <em>seek the Lord with all your heart, and you will find Him<\/em>. These past ten years I have prayed and sought the Lord, and He has listened to me. He has shown me a life that I never imagined that I would have, and He has helped and blessed me much more than I deserve.<\/p>\n<p>And now I think ahead to the next ten years: <em>what does God have in store for us next<\/em>? My birthday wish is that you pray for Yuliza and me: that we would continue to seek the Lord and that we would always be led by Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Besides a few grey hairs that have started to appear, I don\u2019t feel any older! But this birthday has been a good time for me to think and reflect over how God\u2019s blessed my life in so many ways. He blessed me with incredible parents and family, and through them &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/?p=209\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Brent&#8217;s Birthday<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guatemala"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2tws0-3n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":691,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pottershome.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}