Rooted in Love

 

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." - Ephesians 3:14-19

The book of Ephesians is packed full of rich, vibrant truth and teaching and this passage in chapter 3 has been on my heart and mind in recent weeks. I've been thinking a lot about love, what love means, and how I can better love the people in my life. If I'm honest, it's difficult for me to love and show love to others, so this passage in Ephesians has been teaching me: in order for me to love others, I need to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

Matthew Henry, in his eloquent wisdom, has this to say:

The fixing of pious and devout affections in the soul: That you being rooted and grounded in love, steadfastly fixed in your love to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to all the saints, the beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many have some love to God and to his servants, but it is a flash, like the crackling of thorns under a pot, it makes a great noise, but is gone presently. We should earnestly desire that good affections may be fixed in us, that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Some understand it of their being settled and established in the sense of God's love to them, which would inspire them with great ardours of holy love to him, and to one another. And how very desirable is it to have a settled fixed sense of the love of God and Christ to our souls, so as to be able to say with the apostle at all times, He has loved me! Now the best way to attain this is to be careful that we maintain a constant love to God in our souls; this will be the evidence of the love of God to use. We love him, because he first loved us. In order to this [Paul] prays for their experimental acquaintance with the love of Jesus Christ. The more intimate acquaintance we have with Christ's love to us, the more our love will be drawn out to him and to others (emphasis mine)."

Page Details

The idea behind this page, of a tree roots being grounded in hearts, came to me quite awhile ago - I just needed the right supplies and stamp sets to put it together. The Bible talks quite a bit about the fruit of a person's life, but a tree cannot be full and fruitful if it doesn't have good soil. The imagery is meant to convey the importance of being rooted and grounded in the soil of love in order to grow strong and produce good, loving fruit for Christ. I had actually journaled in this page two years ago at a Christian family camp, and my notes from that message in July 2018 were still relevant to my life today. I simply illustrated the tree over the notes I had already written. 

Two things things have the power to destroy a family: 1) words and 2) anger. Of course, two of the biggest things I struggle with daily! 😳 But there are things that can help overcome these destructive tendencies: speaking the truth in love, and learning to love and show grace and forgiveness. I'm 36 years old and have been a mom and partner for 20 years and I'm still at this spot: learning to show grace and love to my husband and children, learning to be sympathetic, learning to practice forgiveness. I'm not naturally good at any of it, but by God's grace through me, I can learn and put into practice these characteristics so that I may build my family up instead of tear it down. The only way I can do this is by Christ dwelling in me and being rooted and grounded in His amazing love. 

I used Distress Oxides, watercolors, a Zig Writer pen, and the below stamp sets to create this page. 💜 

 

  

The great thing about this page is that it could be illustrated in so many different ways, using really any kind of medium. I'd love to see your creative take on this verse! Take a minute to read this passage, pray, illustrate, and then tag me so I can see. I'm @journalingjoy on Instagram. 😊

Much love in Christ, 

Janelle 🎕

God is good...All The Time

Hey friends! Life has been a little crazy, chaotic and topsy turvy lately. But April is here and now we have beautiful new stamps joining the line up in the shop...you can go check those out here. Let's jump on in and get our hands a little dirty and I will share my heart...

The splotchy, textured paint at the top and bottom of the pages I created by using a new technique I learned from Shanna Noel. I used a piece of wax paper and a drop of paint then sprayed it with water to create a looser consistency. Then comes the fun part, I smooshed the wax paper into the page. This created a very loose almost watercolor like look to the page. Once the paint was completely dried I stamped the happy day florals. I stamped the triangles around using a little watered down acrylic paint. For the title I used the All in all stamp set (this has to be one of my new favorites, I think I have used it on nearly every page since I received it!) and stamped out 'all the time God is'. The last step is my journaling, stickers, tabs, wordfetti, and puffy hearts.

Ever have a few weeks that you just feel so defeated and frustrated? I am just passing through that ... A few weeks ago my basement was flooded when my area experienced massive amounts of heavy rain. Then the next weekend my water heater began to leak all over my basement...ugh I was beginning to feel like everything was against me. Later that week I sat down to some much needed quiet time and these verses fell into my lap like much needed ointment for my soul.

"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength- that Christ will live in you are you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything you know-far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! Ephesians 3:14-20 MSG

Talk about knocking my socks off and making me want to shout "Hallelujah"! I needed this reminder that no matter the stuff going on around me my Father is holding all things together. He sees me, loves me and cares. I simply need to seek Him, and He will open the gates wide. Sometimes our circumstances can cloud our view making it hard to see the truth. Just remember ALL THE TIME God is good!

Hugs and Prayers,
Jenn @creativegurl85