Joan was my older brother\u2019s good friend way back at our home church. Now Joan had dated some of the guys from our youth group during her late teens thru her mid-20\u2019s; but she never heard those words she so longed to hear, \u201cWill you marry me?\u201d She went on to date some other guys from other churches and from her workplace in her 30\u2019s and even into her 40\u2019s; but still, I don\u2019t believe she ever saw even one guy get down on his knee before her. What she did see was the proverbial handwriting on the wall: she would be single till death do her part.<\/p>\n
Whenever there\u2019s an engagement announcement, the word spreads quickly; but never like it did when Joan announced her engagement \u2013 just last year at age 69! Now I can\u2019t tell you which emotion won out among all her friends, me included: was it the euphoria or the shock? We were all blown away! but at the same time, we were beyond thrilled!<\/p>\n
There was once another announcement that shocked its hearers, but for a wholly other reason: who made the announcement: an angel! I suspect most of you know the story well enough to remember what he announced on that momentous occasion: \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.\u201d Why not end the year well and come out this Sunday to hear the message entitled, \u201cGreat Reactions to the Good News?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joan was my older brother\u2019s good friend way back at our home church. Now Joan had dated some of the guys from our youth group during her late teens thru her mid-20\u2019s; but she never heard those words she so longed to hear, \u201cWill you marry me?\u201d She went on to date some other guys… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pastors-desk","category-pastors-weekly-update","category-sermon-preview"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/5261BB70-044A-48DD-BEAD-5C0D0CEDFB76.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2958,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions\/2958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithfamilyfellowship.church\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}