Okay, I am kind of embarrassed to ask this, but could someone tell me how to link someones blog or web site in a post?????

Journal Swap

I am in a journal swap with a few women. I did these spreads for Tammy (tammysstudio.com) It's kind of scary to do these in a journal that is not your own. I did the Heart spread first, then skipped a page to let it dry completely. I worked on the Wonder spread. When that was dry I went back to the pages between the two spreads to work on the third one, Roads. It was not going very well at first, and since it had something of either side I was kind of freaking out!!! But as the case usually turns out, I like the finished spread best on the pages that were not working in the beginning. Kind of like life. We hit a snag, a trial, a bump in the road and we hate it at first, but if we let God do his marvelous work in us we are changed for the better.

Tammy I had fun doing these for you, I hope you like them.

(click on the picture to view larger)


Blessings!

Are you listening?

Another portion of "The Sacred Romance" by John Eldredge.

"For what shall we do when we wake one day to find we have lost touch with our hearts and with it the very refuge where God's presence resides?

Starting very early, life has taught all of us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearnings of our heart. Life, for the most part, teaches us to suppress our longing and live only in the external world where efficiency and performance are everything. We have learned from parents and peers, at school, at work, and even from our spiritual mentors that something else is wanted from us other than our heart, which is to say, that which is most deeply us. Very seldom are we ever invited to live out of our heart. If we are wanted, we are often wanted for what we can offer functionally. If rich, we are honored for our wealth; if beautiful, for our looks; it intelligent, for our brains. So we learn to offer only those parts of us that are approved, living out a carefully crafted performance to gain acceptance from those who represent life to us. We divorce ourselves from our heart and begin to live a double life. Frederick Buechner expresses this phenomenon in his biographical work. Telling Secrets:

Our orginal shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all....rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather.

Communion with God is replaced by activity for God. There is little time in this outer world for deep questions. Given the right plan, everything in life can be managed...except your heart.

The inner life, the story of your heart, is the life of deep places within us, our passions and dreams, our fears and our deepest wounds. It is the unseen life, the mystery within - what Buechner calls our "shimmering self." It cannot be managed like a corporation. The heart does not respond to principles and programs; it seeks not efficiency, but passion. Art, poetry, beauty, mystery, ecstasy: These are what rouse the heart. Indeed, they are the language that must be spoken if one wishes to communicate with the heart. It is why Jesus so often taught and related to people by telling stories and asking questions. His desire was not just to engage their intellects but to capture their hearts.

Indeed, if we will listen, a Sacred Romance calls to us through our heart every moment of our lives. It whispers to us on the wind, invites us through the laughter of good friends, reaches out to us through the touch of someone we love. We've heard it in our favorite music, sensed it at the birth of our first child, been drawn to it while watching the shimmer of a sunset on the ocean. The Romance is even present in times of great personal suffering: the illness of a child, the loss of a marriage, the death of a friend. Something calls to us through experiences like these and rouses an inconsolable longing deep within our heart, wakening in us a yearning for intimacy, beauty, and adventure.

This longing is the most powerful part of any human personality. It fuels our search for meaning, for wholeness, for a sense of being truly alive. However we may describe this desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life. And the voice that calls to us in this is place is none other than the voice of God.

We cannot hear this voice if we have lost touch with our heart."

Are you listening??

I wanted to say something here because some might think that to live from the heart is the same as living out of your emotions. I do not believe this to be true. Our "heart" is who we are. Emotions are not who we are, but things we experience. They are not good or bad in themselves. They are telling us how we are feeling at the moment. It is what we do with our emotions that matters. That is more telling of the state of our heart.

Blessings!

Six

six
flower
arrangements
from
the sunfllowers

Birthday Flowers

I just wanted to show off my sweet husband - he walked in this morning with 53 glorious sunflowers. 53 for the number of years I have lived!!!

Greg thank you for these, and all the sweet and thoughtful things you do for me!!
I love you!!!

A heart journey

"From the effort to understand, we must not turn back because the way is difficult and there are no mechanical aids for the ascent. The view is better farther up and the journey is not one for the feet but for the heart. Let us seek, therefore, such "trances of thought and mountings of the mind" as God may be pleased to grant us, knowing that the Lord often pours eyesight on the blind and whispers to babes and sucklings truths never dreamed of by the wise and prudent. Now the blind must see and the deaf hear. Now we must expect to receive the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places."

A. W. Tozer
The Knowledge of the Holy

Blessings,
Mary

Day Planners

I have been on the hunt for the perfect day planner/calendar/journal for years.
I decided to make one since I cannot seem to fine one that is functional and visual appealing.
I like it!! I have monthly calendars, note pages, to do pages, and colorful, fun pages for journaling on the go.

monthly pages
monthly pages
monthly pages
pages to journal on
page for books to read

More

Good morning sweet friends. I have been thinking a lot about my life, how I live it, how I relate to others. How I seem to be becoming more "real" like the "Velveteen Rabbit". Do you all know that wonderful story?? Oh you must read it if you have not.

I have been a "Christian" for more years than I have not. But it has been the the last two years that I have been awakened to what that really means. It is not a list of rules, of dos and don't s.
It's not about looking like I have all the answers, that my life is wonderful and all together. I think those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, me included can be exclusive. To not be open heart-ed to those who are not "one of us". What a insult to our Lord, who came for the wounded. We are all broken - even if we do not see it.

What do we do with that, our wounded-ness, where do we go? We can try in our own strength to be a better person. I have tried, it does not work. How often do we try to change something in us only to discover that will-power does not work for the long haul?? God knows we cannot, that is why He came.

I look at all the "religions" of the world. They all, with the exception of one, have requirements that one has to accomplish to be accepted. Only one (and though it is considered a "religion" it is really a relationship, a way of life) does God show His love for us first, before we clean up our act, before we get "good" so to speak. We don't have to do anything to be loved and accepted. We are only asked to believe Him, and accept what He offers us. He offers us a beautiful gift. There are no strings attached!! Once we are His, He begins the process of changing our hearts. That's when our real journey begins. It is not an easy life, but it is a rich and rewarding life. If someone tells you to become a "Christian" and your life will be easy and all your problems will go away they are not being truthful. But if they tell you, you will discover total acceptance, love, peace, even joy they are being truthful. If it sounds to good to be true - pie in the sky - I am here to tell you it is the truth. You will still experience pain, heartache, hardships, all the stuff of life, but there will be a difference. We were made by God, for God. We were made to have a relationship with Him. We were made for more than this world has to offer.

Blessings,
Mary

What do you do with your disappointment?

What do you do with your disappointment?? I shop, eat, move furniture around and around, watch TV, read, etc., etc., etc. These things are not "bad" things. It's when we use them to numb the pain, when we use them to not look at why we are feeling unsettled. Sometimes, most times, it hurts to look. We don't like what we see, but remembering we are totally accepted, and loved as we are, by the one who knows it all anyway helps. We can come out of hiding. We can look without fear of being rejected.

But it is still hard!!

Here is another excerpt from one of John Eldredge's books. This one is from "The Sacred Romance"

As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward him, our heart’s capacities also grow and expand: “Thou shalt enlarge my heart” (Ps. 119:32 KJV).

But the sword cuts both ways. While our heart grows in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain. The two go hand in hand. What, then, shall we do with disappointment? We can be our own enemy, depending on how we handle the heartache that comes with desire. To want is to suffer; the word passion means to suffer. This is why many Christians are reluctant to listen to their hearts: They know that their dullness is keeping them from feeling the pain of life. Many of us have chosen simply not to want so much; it’s safer that way. It’s also godless. That’s stoicism, not Christianity. Sanctification is an awakening, the rousing of our souls from the dead sleep of sin into the fullness of their capacity for life.

Desire often feels like an enemy, because it wakes longings that cannot be fulfilled in the moment. In the words of T. S. Eliot,

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire. (The Waste Land )

Spring awakens a desire for the summer that is not yet. Awakened souls are often disappointed, but our disappointment can lead us onward, actually increasing our desire and lifting it toward its true passion.

Blessings,
Mary

Why the ache??

As good as my life is, and it is good. I really do not lack much, and even though times are really hard for so many, we are much better off here than most of the world. But for much of my life there has been this lingering feeling of "is this as good as it gets?" There has been a lingering feeling of "dissatisfaction". Why I ask myself, when from the world's perspective I have it all??? There has been quilt over not being satisfied with my life, it is a good life. Hard things happen, but on the whole it is easy.

Ahhh, we were made for a better place. When God first created the world and humans, it was a perfect place. It is no longer that place. And as good as "here" is sometimes, and sometimes it is really really really good,there is always that ache that comes, is this as good as it gets???? As great as my husband is, he lets me down.
As great as my kids are, they let me down. As wonderful as my stuff is - the satisfaction wears off. As wonderful as the thrill of something is - it never lasts. AND I let those I love down. And I feel guilty for not being satisfied with ALL I have in my life, people and well as physical comforts!!!!

Now I know some might think, well that is the nature of life. Yes, that is the nature of life here - but not what God had planned for us. That is why I have a lingering ache. Why, (if I slow down the busyness long enough to feel) I know in my heart there is more.

The portion below is by John Eldredge's book "The Sacred Romance".

"If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women. We will place on this world a burden it was never intended to bear. We will try to find a way to sneak back into the Garden and when that fails, as it always does, our heart fails as well. If truth be told, most of us live as though this life is our only hope.

In his wonderful book The Eclipse of Heaven, A. J. Conyers put it quite simply: “We live in a world no longer under heaven.” All the crises of the human soul flow from there. All our addictions and depressions, the rage that simmers just beneath the surface of our Christian facade, and the deadness that characterizes so much of our lives has a common root: We think this is as good as it gets. Take away the hope of arrival and our journey becomes the Battan death march. The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don’t quite pan out. Sadly, we feel guilty about our disappointment, as though we ought to be more grateful.

Of course we’re disappointed—we’re made for so much more. “He has also set eternity in the hearts” (Eccl. 3:11). Our longing for heaven whispers to us in our disappointments and screams through our agony. “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” "

May you all have a blessed day,
Mary