another spread

can you see the difference between the first and second journal page?

a lot of times after i have taken a photo of my work i can see areas that may need something.

i added more hearts in the lower left hand corner to balance it a bit more, and added some red in the crease of the heart.  as i look at it some more i see that maybe it needs a few blue circles on the left side of the heart, or not.

"If there's ever a tomorrow where we are not together, there is something

you must always remember. You are braver than you believe,

and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think,

but most important of all, even if we are apart,

I'll always be with you."

~ A. A. Milne

journaling

new journal spread done from journal prompt about body image i had prepared for Saturday's workshop

which did not happen

it was supposed to be for teens, when i called the library to check on the numbers i was told there was a nine year old coming...when i inquired further they told me they were all under 12

i usually teach adults, and agreed to do this workshop with teens 13 and up

i really felt this would not work with such a young group so it was canceled

so i will use this prompt for my next women's workshop i think.  we all have issues with body image and it may be good to explore what God has to say verses what we believe and what the world tells us.

grace and peace

serendipity...or not...

it's still rainy and overcast here, but i think i got a better shot of this.

oh, and look at all the acorns that dropped this year...a lot of them have been disposed of...this is the rest.

imagine these hitting a tin roof or getting hit in the head walking to the car... :)

back to the painting...

when i was working on this i did not really have a story in mind.  however, as i added certain stencils they did have meaning for me.

little bits, but not seeing it as a whole till i was finished.

if you look closely there is a background outline of a person...a very primitive one

this was not meant to be a specific person, actually it was a failed attempt to do something

i did not like it, that's when i began to stencil

here is what i see

a hand pointing to Jesus
arrows pointing upward
hand prints of God
peace sign...there is only real peace in Jesus
stop
men running
heart
even some drips running down the body
x's

stop running
look up
real peace is offered
real life is offered
real love covers our mess
our debt has been canceled

oh how i love when this happens

smelly painting

the light is fading, i will take a better photo tomorrow

usually this is an under-painting

i usually continue on to add layers of paint which leave bits and pieces of the stenciling peeking through

but i think i may leave this. may go back and outline some, maybe add a few words, but i think i like the feel of this

i cannot explain why i am so drawn to this busy, graphic, graffiti, messy, explosion of color...

this is hanging outside, front door open and fan going in the studio...

sprayed in my studio

should have sprayed outside

with a mask

feeling kind of gross right now

workshop feedback

it is so fulfilling when you hear something that validates what you feel God has called you to. very soon after my  journey with visual journaling began, i felt the pull to share how God uses this to show us our hearts.  how we can use it to explore them and what is going on internally. 

after saturday's workshop i received a request from a lovely young woman asking if she could share a bit about it and how it has impacted her life and art on her blog.  i wanted to share it with you.  i want to celebrate not me (though it is thrilling to be used) but God and what he is doing.

thank you Isabel.  

you can visit Isabel here

On Saturday, I attended an art journaling workshop taught by artist Mary Freeman, who is an incredible lady. After the very first time I attended this workshop, I can easily say my art was never the same. The central message of these workshops is that the art you create is not supposed to be a masterpiece but instead is supposed to be an outlet for you to speak and reflect on your life. In short, its a form of art therapy. You don’t have the pressure to make everything look “perfect” and can just freely experiment with all the cool supplies Mary Freeman brings to each class. You don’t have to be an amazing artist. You don’t even have to know how to draw a straight line!

And what makes these workshops even more powerful for me is the fact that my faith can also be intertwined with my art. Every class, Mrs. Freeman has Bible verses to share and stories that serve as prompts for the day. I love it most when my God gets involved with my art because, for me, true therapy is achieved through him. But, regardless of your faith, anyone can come to these journal workshops and anyone can be inspired by Mary Freeman’s amazing work!

Above I attached a few pages of hers that particularly inspired me on Saturday.

new journal page and stuff

working in my journal a bit. i seem to be drawn to it more these days. i make such a mess when i do one though. i started this one trying to make it a little "prettier", but i really don't begin to like them until i grunge them up a bit. i wonder sometimes, if my internal struggles have something to do with that.  then again, i think i think too hard and much sometimes...

i have a workshop this Saturday and have much to do.  i also am beginning another women's night out visual journaling series at Out of The Box art studio in Roswell next Thursday. 

i am doing a workshop at a local library in a few weeks.  i think it will be a younger group, mostly teens. i have been thinking about doing a journal prompt on body image for this workshop. i don't think there is person out there who does not struggle with this on some level.

off to get supplies

around the house

 there is something about this little corner i love

and i love this little space with the stacked books and framed print

also love my little collection of succulents and rocks the smaller ones from Kim 

it's cold here today, more like January is supposed to be

hope you all are having a great Saturday and doing something you love 

grace and peace

wanting more

a few new journal pages. i have not worked in my journal since November.

i sat down and thought i had forgotten it all, but as i began to add paint it

got a little easier. 

well for some bizarre reason i cannot get the above photo to load horizontally, i even changed the size of it. any ideas? and i just realized my tears/raindrops are upside down, oh well...

...she began to listen to God by listening to her heart, to her life. she had crossed the threshold everyone is called to when called to obedience - the threshold where God says, "Please listen, because I want to reveal myself to you. i hold the answers. and if i never reveal the answers to you, i will reveal myself to you.
(Listening to Love)

do i want answers?

yes!

but i want God more.

grace and peace

Sunday musings

(done on iPad using sketchbook express app)

i must admit that i was a little miffed at the anonymous comment left on my last post.

it was not an un-kind comment, but when i read it i immediately wanted to defend myself.

i have learned that when that happens i need to stop and ask myself the question why?

so i did.  

i really do think it's okay to use other writers, especially when what they say is what you 

would say if you could.  but the questions anonymous left, "what does Mary think, believe...

made me realize it would be good to sit down and write just that.  

i think i will make it an ongoing process...to keep writing what i believe...

so here is the beginning of my list, they are in no particular order...just thoughts flowing

from my mind and heart.

i believe we live in a fallen world

that we are all broken and in need of healing and restoration

i believe the world we live in is not the world we were created for

we were made for relationship with the God of the universe

i believe we are a stubborn people, thinking and choosing our own path, wanting to control our life

i believe when we take control we screw it up...

i believe there is a God who loves us enough to give up all to come to earth as a baby, walk this life sinless, giving his life to bring me/us back into relationship with the Father to restore, heal, change me

i believe he is good, even when i can't see it

i believe he wants what is best for me always, even if the process of achieving it causes me pain

i believe this journey to restoration, wholeness is a life long process and will not be finished till God takes me home or he comes again.

i believe though God is changing, working in my heart there is still more of me than him

i believe i still want my way more than his a lot of the time

i believe i am loved in my mess

i believe that nothing i do, good or bad changes that fact

i believe i want God's will for me in the deepest part of me

i know i struggle with selfishness

i believe there is an enemy of my soul, who desires to crush my heart, make me feel defeated, unlovable, worthless, un-restorable. who desires me to question the goodness of God and his heart toward me

i believe i am in a battle, and it's worth the fight

i believe life is hard and discouraging at times

i believe we need each other on the journey

and that the enemy uses my companions and loved ones to wound my heart, as he uses me to wound their's (meaning my words and actions)

i believe i am forgiven because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross...and only because of Jesus

all Jesus, even now...all Jesus

i know he is not finished with me

that he has a purpose for me

that i am not where i want to be in my journey

that i still struggle...

grace and peace to you

  

leaning in

journaling a bit on my ipad...

i have always had a problem with the word "obedience"
just don't like the word, but

i read this and i have a whole new perspective

in Jan Meyers book "Listening to the Voice of Love"she speaks of 3 postures of the heart.
the first being the invitation to respond. she says, 


"even though i desired change, i feared it."


"responding to love, responding to God's voice. obedience is a whole-hearted (hmm, my 2011 word) and, as we will see, sensual response to the voice of Love - it involves our whole being, our deepest self. open that door, and we have no idea what will step across the threshold...


...it will profoundly jostle our well-ordered life
...perhaps we know enough to be afraid he will speak, he will enter
...perhaps we are just afraid of him


the first posture is actually a posture of obedience. God asks for our hearts even though we're afraid to believe we're going to be led into something good as he changes our path, our mind, our ways. but our understanding of obedience has become skewed. if we're honest, we admit that upon hearing obedience, we sag (oh yes i do) inside and reluctantly wait to find out what is expected of us. obedience to God can conjure a "pull yourself up and face what's required of you" salute, like a lineup of soldiers waiting for marching orders. it's not so much a soldier marching because of duty as a person leaning in to hear a voice we've come to trust and wanting to go where it leads."

yes, yes, yes!!

not so much duty - but trust and love

obedience for the sake of obedience...yes i know it has it's place...but this has always been hard for me.

trust


love


to ask someone to follow just because, when they do not love and trust the one asking seems a little much. i think that's why those who do not know, believe or trust Jesus have a hard time understanding our "blind faith" and i understand that. yes, there is that initial leap of faith, that initial moment when God touches your heart and you believe it's true, that Jesus is who he says he is. But that is where the journey begins...as you sit at his feet and learn more of who he is and his heart for you, and he begins to change your heart trust and obedience grows.

it's all relationship is it not...

she also says, "those who obeyed God, pondered his request; they listened and wrestled with his intentions and then said yes, despite the evidence.  Those who did not obey did not listen well - they didn't wrestle with what was being asked - and they missed  Love."


it's okay to wrestle, oh yes it is...


and more, "our English word obey comes from the Hebrew shams. It means "to hear intelligently, attentively, call together, consider, discern, give ear, hear, listen, perceive, understand."


it's engaged 


it's intimate


an invitation for us to say, "What did you just ask? What did you just say? Could I possible have heard you correctly?"


Jan says, "when i understand true obedience, then i can respond with who i am rather than perform as the person i think i should be. i move from fear of the doorknob to anticipation of the relationship, from controlling to surrendering to someone bigger than i am - someone unruly (according to my terms) someone i don't understand and whom i can't fully predict, someone who has good in mind even when i have trouble trusting him to give it."

leaning in....

want to join??

more on listening

i have been doing a little searching on my word for the year.

definitions are:
to give attention with the ear (and i say heart)
attend closely for the purpose of hearing
to pay attention
to heed
to obey
to wait attentively for a sound
to listen for sounds of their return

informal definition - to convey a particular impression to the hearer; sound: "The new recording doesn't listen as well as the old one."

related forms:
listener
re-listen
un-listen

to listen is to try to hear, to hear is simply to perceive with the ear... (i believe it is more)

at least for me it's more...there is a reason for the listening.

there are tons of synonyms:
hear
interested
attending
attentive
accept
admit
adopt
audit
catch
concentrate
entertain
get
mind
monitor
obey
observe
receive

more later

grace and peace

oh, i got an ipad...doing a little playing on it
                   
         

Beginnings

a fresh new year

open, ready to receive

i wait, anticipating how 2012 will unfold

i have struggled with choosing my word for the year, one little word pregnant with possibilities

this year is no different, and may in fact be fuller than most

LISTENING  

to the voice of 

LOVE 

i have much to share with this word, but for now i want to leave you with this excerpt from a book i am beginning. "Listening to Love, responding to the startling voice of God", by Jan Meyers.

"What is it about us that we would either dismiss him or cower before him? Why are our hearts persuaded that he is either powerless or malevolent when in fact he would choose the humiliation of spittle on his face, splinters in his skin, and steel through his bone to answer the question, :Is it really you? Why do we listen to the mocking voice of evil or the faulty reasoning we extrapolate from our own stories and life messages rather than the truth that someone would want to die for us, defeat death for us, go back to the Father with our ransom in his hands and talk to the Father about us, pleading our case? And perhaps a more courageous question: what causes us to quake, not with the fear of the Lord - Jesus Christ of Nazareth - but before the God of our Worst Fear?"

"Our Worst Fears take many forms: God will not remember me. God will shame me for what I've been involved in. God will get my hopes up and then dash them. God will ask too much of me. God will leave me alone."

"...our gods - the need to secure our reputation in the marketplace, the voice telling us that the most important this is to be liked, the pattern of isolation we fall into when we guard ourselves with a routine of work and television, the belief that we must keep up the facade of a perfect Christian family, you can't be wrong, you have to come through, you must alter yourself, you must get it right or make sure you fake your way; convince everyone. The gods of our fear drive us from behind with threats of abandonment, requirement, and rejection if we fail to appease them. Then they offer the way to appease them - hide. Hide in obvious way, through pornography or materialism, and in less obvious ways, through self-condemnation or pride."

"There is safety - these gods do keep us from facing what we fear about God - for a while. Appeasing this fear - playing with our self-crafted appeasement trinkets - keeps us very busy as we hide our heart from God?  As long as we have our Worst Fear to cower behind, we never have to face our unbelief in Love."

"Discovering the Love that doesn't want or need to be appeased but desires all of us - longing for us to be alive, confident, free - is a great thing.  So why is the process so frightening? Let me say it this way: when we open the door to God, he comes to remove the obstacles in the way of our knowing the fullness of Love. He takes away our pride, our autonomy, our religion, sometimes our vocation, possibly our life. And as we'll see, he does this for our freedom."

in the next several days i will share more on this word and it's meaning to me.

grace and peace