{"id":2824,"date":"2013-11-28T12:05:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-28T17:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/?p=2824"},"modified":"2013-11-28T12:05:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T17:05:37","slug":"transcending-mediocrity-requires-pain-and-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/transcending-mediocrity-requires-pain-and-grace","title":{"rendered":"Transcending Mediocrity Requires Pain – and Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace, Oh Lord. Help me with this life that seems so treacherous, so disappointing.”<\/p>\n

~ Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

Here – at age twenty-one – Flannery O’Connor is praying for grace so that she might become something more than a mediocre writer. Four years later she is diagnosed with Lupus, the disease that would kill her at age 39 – 14 years later.<\/p>\n

It was during those 14 years of extreme illness when Flannery did her best work and become more than a mediocre writer. She withstood the pain to get the grace.<\/p>\n

God is often doing His best work in us in the midst of our deepest sorrows, greatest losses, and severest pain. Do not lose heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace, Oh Lord. Help me with this life that seems so treacherous, so disappointing.” ~ Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal Here – at age twenty-one – Flannery O’Connor is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2825,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2824\/revisions\/2825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}