In June 2009 I graduated from the Ohio State University and found myself in the food stamp office two days later and with an eviction notice on my door two months after that. There were no options available to me \u2013 nowhere to turn and no hope for salvation. As I looked around my apartment, deciding what I could take and what would have to be left behind, I was consumed by regret. Regret at the things I had accumulated, regret at the years of study and loneliness, regret that what I had worked so hard to achieve had dissolved into a mirage.<\/p>\n

During all my study, perhaps in a time of arrogance, I had abandoned God. Turned my back on the Word and his promise of what is yet to come. I placed my hopes in a cold world indifferent to my survival. But, when everything to me was lost, I reached out to the Lord in my desperation and found the House of Faith open to me and awaiting my arrival. It was forgiven that my belief had wavered \u2013 for God never failed to believe in me.<\/p>\n

I turned from within myself and found that whenever I reached out a hand to those in need, two hands reached down to lift me up. Forced to be silent and still, God entered with the grace of a warm sun in the dead of winter. We are reminded that the Lord waits for us. We are reminded that wherever we come together, inviting his presence among us, we are in his house. The body of Jesus Christ is our temple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In June 2009 I graduated from the Ohio State University and found myself in the food stamp office two days later and with an eviction notice on my door two months after that. There were no options available to me \u2013 nowhere to turn and no hope for salvation. As I looked around my apartment, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,48],"tags":[170,171,167],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/praxiscommunities.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}