{"id":14418,"date":"2023-12-03T16:37:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=14418"},"modified":"2023-12-03T16:37:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:37:56","slug":"the-ditch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/14418\/the-ditch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ditch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Hi Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">I had a sweet experience with Jesus yesterday, and I wanted to share it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">I had been mowing some of the leaves that have fallen and saw some garbage in the ditch.\u00a0\u00a0I stopped the mower and got off to pick up the garbage.\u00a0\u00a0There were two glass whiskey bottles and two beer cans lying near each other,\u00a0and as I bent down to pick them up, I felt frustrated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">I began to tell Jesus how much it bothered me that some people just threw their alcohol bottles in the ditch as they drove or walked by.\u00a0\u00a0Actually, I told him that those people get on my nerves, and I didn&#8217;t want to have to pick up after their bad habits.\u00a0\u00a0When I said that, Jesus started talking to me.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus asked me which condition would I rather be in, the condition of the poor soul carrying around that bottle or the condition of being clean and sober, and cleaning up the ditch? I know what condition I was in before Jesus came into the ditch and carried me out.\u00a0\u00a0It changed me as soon as he said that.\u00a0\u00a0I am just overwhelmed with thankfulness for what condition I am in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">I have been picking up garbage out of that ditch for five years now, and I don&#8217;t think I will ever feel the same about it.\u00a0\u00a0I thought about it all day, and the same overwhelming thankfulness hits me.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus cleans up ditches all the time!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">When Jesus talks to you it changes things.\u00a0\u00a0I love how true that is!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Beth D.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14421 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pearl12_3.jpg\" alt=\"pearl12_3\" width=\"394\" height=\"161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pearl12_3.jpg 636w, https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/pearl12_3-300x123.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 394px) 100vw, 394px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Pastor John, I had a sweet experience with Jesus yesterday, and I wanted to share it.\u00a0 I had been mowing some of the leaves that have fallen and saw some garbage in the ditch.\u00a0\u00a0I stopped the mower and got off to pick up the garbage.\u00a0\u00a0There were two glass whiskey bottles and two beer cans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}