Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM 18 UCW DECEMBER 7 - 13, 2022 Christmas: The season of grace by DAN DEBRULER Grace. e word literally means 'favor.' In Hebrew it is CHEN from a root word CHAN- AN — to bend or stoop in kindness to another as a superior to an inferior. I've experienced grace. On my best days I've even extended it to others. Once you recognize it you become aware it is nothing short of amazing. ree years and a lifetime ago today our oldest son drew his final breath on this earth. In the time that's passed since actualizing any parent's worst nightmare, I've learned several things about myself, things about those I love, about those I endeavor to serve, and God. I've learned a lot about God. I've become more aware than ever that life is full of difficult situations. And I've discovered the lens through which to view them from those who literally walked with and learned from Jesus. ose who paved the pathway to understand- ing tell us in their letters inspired by God Himself and recorded for all of us in the Bible. Peter (the rough-around-the-edges disciple) called it a living hope. In the first of his recorded letters, (1 Peter 1:6-7) he says this, "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more pre- cious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Shining the light on hope in even the worst situations has become an everyday task in my world. For more than two decades I've been trusted with a platform extending the promises God made and still makes to us individually and collectively. And what I've realized in the past three years is that the promise of the sorrow of the night giving way to a new joy in the morning is true. I've had nights I wrestled with the silence of sorrow, trying to drown it out with music or some white noise in my earbuds to carry me through 'til morning. And then it came. Morning. e dawn of a new day. With the renewed promise of hope each new sunrise offers us. So this — this moment of trial is part of the promise. If anything about the story of hope I weave is true beyond today, I must embrace it. I must put my feet on the floor, step into the day ahead, and share the promise with others — even as I am being refined in the fire of trial. Yeah, grace truly is amazing. And as God bends to me with His kindness, I can only be grate- ful. Life has taught me the vanity of questioning 'why.' So I allow that grace — that kindness — to be enough, knowing this moment, this trial, this testing of all that's encompassed in my use of the word faith will, in light of eternity, prove itself to have been only a little while. FAITH DAN DEBRULER, General Manager, WCLN. Comments? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. www.faytechcc.edu – (910) 678-8400 – admissionscounselors@faytechcc.edu • Business • Computer Information Technology • Engineering • Healthcare • Human Service Technology • Media & Fine Arts • Public Safety • Skilled Trades • University Transfer Over 280 programs to choose from in these major program areas: Spring classes begin January 9! >>> APPLY NOW! Better skills – Better jobs – Better pay!