{"id":230,"date":"2025-08-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/?p=230"},"modified":"2025-08-01T19:46:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T19:46:16","slug":"unexpected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/unexpected\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"860\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez-860x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez-860x1024.jpg 860w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez-252x300.jpg 252w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez-768x914.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez-560x667.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2025\/08\/25-08-04-Sunflower-by-Frank-Ramirez.jpg 1008w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 860px) 100vw, 860px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Photo by Frank Ramirez<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cI have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength\u201d (Philippians 4:12-13, CEB).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Activity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Frank Ramirez shared this reflection with Tiny Retreats, to accompany this photo:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was surprised eight years ago when this sunflower unexpectedly burst through between pavement stones leading to our front porch, but I was even more surprised when she flourished, producing a bumper crop of sunflower seeds for the birds, and inconveniencing me in a delightful way all summer and autumn until winter fell. Can you think of an unexpected and surprising circumstance in which you flourished despite great difficulties?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength\u201d (Philippians 4:12-13, CEB). Activity Frank Ramirez shared this reflection with Tiny Retreats, to accompany this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/pause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}