{"id":16508,"date":"2026-09-19T19:34:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T02:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=16508"},"modified":"2026-09-25T19:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T02:37:22","slug":"despair-is-never-appropriate-for-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2026\/09\/despair-is-never-appropriate-for-a-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"Despair is Never Appropriate For a Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Despair_Never_Despair_01_900x431.jpg\" alt=\"Despair is Never Appropriate For a Christian\" width=\"900\" height=\"431\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Despair_Never_Despair_01_900x431.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Despair_Never_Despair_01_900x431-300x144.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Despair_Never_Despair_01_900x431-768x368.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/>by Fr. Photius Avant &#8211;<br \/>\nDespair is never appropriate for the Christian. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Whatever darkness you\u2019re in, for whatever tiny bit of light that you have, you are not abandoned, and God has not abandoned you. So, cling to Him with everything that you have. &#8230; You have doubtlessly already stumbled, fallen, and sinned. The Fast is not spoiled! <\/p>\n<p>Make the sign of the cross. Do it right now. Get up and keep going. And God bless you and strengthen as you keep going. That little spark, that little glimmer of light, if you\u2019re holding onto Christ, will be blindly bright. <\/p>\n<p>To Him is due all glory, honor, and worship together with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages, Amen.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<br \/>\nHT: <a href=\"https:\/\/orthochristian.com\/180405.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">St. Sava Orthodox Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Fr. Photius Avant &#8211; Despair is never appropriate for the Christian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,35,157],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-christianity","category-philosophy","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16511,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16508\/revisions\/16511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}