Stop Drop and Pray for...

Hi there,

Does anyone else feel like their prayer life needs to grow? I did a little word study on prayer recently and was massively challenged on the amount of scriptures that encourage, command and model different types of prayer and things we can/should be praying for. One of the verses that really spoke to me was Luke 6:28, where Jesus says, "bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." Wow, that's a tough one.

Abuse, in whatever form it takes, is a really difficult experience to go through. I know personally that my first reaction is not to pray for the one abusing. But yet, I read Jesus' words and realise that as a child of God I am supposed to choose differently. Admittedly, my first reactions may still be motivated by pain, but Jesus tells me I can choose differently. And how do I make that choice? Well, I look at my Heavenly Father, who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked (that includes me!) and I pray, asking that He make me more and more into His image as I pray for those who hurt me.

As I illustrated this page I reflected on this verse as well as one in the same chapter where Jesus teaches that the mouth speaks what the heart is full of (good trees bear good fruit; bad trees bear bad fruit). Boy that was challenging! The way I speak about those who abuse me reveals what is in my heart... As well as choosing to pray for those who abuse me I also need to pray that God would continually work on my heart so that this flows naturally from a heart overwhelmed by the grace and mercy of God, for me and for others!

Here is a little tutorial for how I created this page:

I used Gelatos to scribble some colour on the page (above) - looks pretty messy at this point! Then the magic happens courtesy of the humble baby wipe! Just swipe and blend from one side to the other and the background of your page and the results are fabulous. I added some stencilled sunrays, stamped the trees from Scene Silhouettes: Trees and added some foliage using paint.

Finally I stamped in the margin using the Stop, Drop and Pray stamp (a little sneaky peek of something coming in January!), adding the other words using Mini Grunge Type Alpha and some alpha stickers.

I hope today's thoughts are an encouragement to you, even though this is a very challenging message. I'm so grateful that we serve a God of grace who helps us in our weakness!

Be blessed...

x Amy x