seasons

Advent Is Upon Us🙏🌲🌠

Advent is one of my favorite seasons. Yesterday marked the beginning of the #advent season. It starts four Sundays before Christmas.🎄This is an evergreen wreath with four candles, sometimes with a fifth, white candle in the center. ‘Beginning with the First Sunday of Advent, the lighting of a candle can be accompanied by a Bible reading, devotional time, and prayers.’ Another candle is lit each Sunday until, by the last Sunday, all four candles have been lit. Some Advent wreaths include a fifth, white candle which is lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day (the pink one is for rejoicing on the fourth Sunday).🕯🎄🙏☦️🧑‍🎄🌨❄️ #advent #christmas

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book “Not Without God: A Story of Survival.” Her stories have been featured in various guest articles, medical journals, magazines, newsletters, and more than 300 of her own blog articles. As an educator for more than twenty years, she’s had the privilege of working with thousands of students from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Her upcoming book, “Not Without God: Hope In the Storm” will be out next year. Her writing endeavors have earned her an invitation to speak at the Harvard Faculty Club’s “Business Expert Forum.” Zina’s goal is to help others overcome adversity, and she strives to do what she longs to–help others. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Southern Writers magazine, and the Suite T blog, among other places. Socializing with friends, taking business trips, listening to music, and meeting new people are among her hobbies. She was recently featured on Color Speak (a Grace and Truth Radio World! podcast) and on ESPN’s ‘Solutions from the Huddle’ broadcast. You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, or Twitter.

The Gregorian Calendar

I hope your weekend is good!🙏☀️ Did you know the Gregorian calendar that we use today was initially the Julian calendar? The Pope changed it back in 1582 because the Julian calendar was wrong. I’m watching a podcast of Joe Rogan’s with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, and it’s very interesting.

In 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar (developed by Jesuit Catholic Priests), Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Since the Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the solar year’s length by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons. The Jesuits had to take ten days out of the calendar and compensate for it through Leap Days.

B.C. means ‘Before Christ,’ but it has since been renamed to indicate, ‘Before Common Era,’ and this attempts to take the religion out of it. C.E., which means ‘Christ Entered,’ has now been changed to ‘Common Era.’ The term in Latin is ‘Anno Domini’ (A.D.), or ‘in the year of our Lord.’ There isn’t a year ‘0’ because 0 doesn’t exist as a Roman numeral. I still use B.C. and A. D. in my writings.

A solar year — the time it takes Earth to orbit the sun — lasts around 365 days. The main difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendar is that an average year in the Julian calendar is 365.25 days while an average year in The Gregorian calendar is 365.2425 days. Again, the Jesuit priests had to take ten days out of the calendar back in Oct. of 1584.

The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used all over the world today! We have seasons because Earth’s axis – the imaginary line that goes through the Earth and around which the Earth spins — is tilted. … The “fixed” tilt means that, during our orbit around our Sun each year, different parts of Earth receive sunlight for different lengths of time. However, the year that corresponds to our seasons is slightly different from the year that corresponds to our sun.

Here is a link to the video I’m watching. The part about the calendar system starts at about 54:35 seconds if you’d like to start there:

About Zina

Zina Hermez authored the best-selling book, “Not Without God: A Story of Survival.” Her stories have been featured in various guest articles, medical journals, magazines, newsletters, and over 250 of her own blog articles. As an educator for more than twenty years, she’s had the privilege of working with thousands of students from different backgrounds and parts of the world. Her upcoming book, “Not Without God: Hope In the Storm” will be out later this year. Her writing endeavors earned her an invitation to speak at the Harvard Faculty Club’s “Business Expert Forum.” Zina’s goal is to help others overcome adversity, and she strives to do what she longs to–help other people. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Southern Writers magazine, and Suite T blog among other places. Socializing with friends, taking business trips, listening to music, and meeting new people are among her hobbies. She was recently featured on Color Speak (a Grace and Truth Radio World! podcast). You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter.

Run the Race to Win It!🏃🏆🥇

Lately I’ve been thinking of HOW MUCH I am doing and how full my schedule is, but you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The idea of sitting down and doing nothing for gaps of periods in time frightens me. Here is why:

I am in a race. I am aware of that, and there are others running with me. And if I want to be the first to pass the finish line (OR, even get to it!), I have to get up and do something!! Once you slow down, you watch others pass you by. Now how are you going to feel when others are making huge strides?

Life is about more than you realize, we are not only here for ourselves, but we are here for EACH OTHER, also—to give instruction, to be a model, to HELP! Once you give up, the people behind you (that you may not even know pay attention), give up, also! Just like I tell my students: here are the instructions, I am going to give them to you, but I can’t “spoon-feed them.”

You’re going to have to read THE INSTRUCTIONS, you’re going to have to do the research, you’re going to have to work. Run! Each of us has our own race and destiny. NO one can determine the outcome but YOU! What are you going to do, today? Are you going to participate?

I have worked through pain. I have gotten up and showed up. Every. Single. Day. You have one job to do. You either get it, or miss it! Don’t be in the ‘miss it’ category, because you will regret it!

We live in a society where the focus is too much on ourselves; instead of being focused on our OWN needs and what WE want, let’s keep in mind Christ who sacrificed SO MUCH for others (you and I!).

Let’s give this season with Advent right around the corner and remember, this is not the season of burn-out, this is not the season of weariness, this is the season to RUN the RACE and FINISH! And believe, me, you will be restored if your heart is in the right place!

CD99A5F4-CC85-464F-96AA-8B06642559AA

Seasons Greetings! Update On Me!🎄🎅

Dear friends,

As you may know, I opted to have an elective surgery on October 2 that left me in the hospital for a full week. When I was finally discharged, I had to go back for almost an additional week due to an infection that could’ve been prevented if the problem were detected early enough. I am happy to say I am at home now and doing much better!

I’m extremely grateful for everyday of health and healing I am able to experience. I hadn’t spent that much time in the hospital since my accident that happened when I was sixteen years old. Since the surgery, my condition has improved and I no longer have an ailment I suffered from for way too long.

I am reminded of the quote shared by the great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, an American Slave that dates back to his book published back in 1845. The popular passage still resonates. He writes: “I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always hold me within its foul embrace, and in the darkest hours of my career this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom.”

He continues, “This good spirit was from God and to Him I offer thanksgiving and praise!” How does this timeless verse relate to me? Well, it doesn’t–directly. As a survivor, I can choose to take the victim mentality though and not try to accomplish all I know I can. But Douglass stood up for his rights and even taught himself how to read and write, and I have rights, too. I am not limited in my abilities because no one knows what God can do.

What Douglass wrote speaks to my soul and it can speak to yours, also. His knowledge of God and the fact that He would set him free is parallel with my knowledge that God will set me free of any bondage in my predicament, thoughts, or attitude. Your challenge may be different from my own, but how can you apply this passage by Frederick Douglass to your own life?

What are you confident about and know you will overcome? Have you ever felt caught up in a situation you didn’t know you could get out of? Did you just know you’d be freed from it? Sometimes we just know that God will deliver us! Was there a time when you knew that only He could help you? Feel free to openly share with me in the comments. I’d love to read your thoughts and get back to you.

May you have a very Merry Christmas and may the Lord Jesus be with you this holiday season and all the days of your lives,

~Zina Hermez

P.S. I was wondering if you were able to catch my Facebook Live interview this past August with Patricia Durgin, the Christian Message coach, from Marketers on A Mission? I recount details of my book Not Without God : A Story of Survival and talk about the accident I was in as a teenager, how I overcame through my faith in the Lord, hard work, and determination.

I also get in depth about my upcoming one, Hope After the Storm. It will be the second in my II part, Not Without God series. In the video, I explain the structure and how it is designed. It’s a narrative like my first, but it gives readers an opportunity to also reflect and write in journal sections at the end of chapters. I also give tips on how to market or pre-launch your own book material or message.

It will help even if you have a desire to write but don’t know how to get started! Click the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DHHYE3QDJE