To Bring Him Glory

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." 

1 Peter 4:12-14

One of my favorite Bible stories is found in John 9. While Jesus is in the midst of His earthly ministry, He and His disciples pass by a man who had been blind from birth. Jesus’ disciples assumed, as was common at that time, that either the man or his parents had committed a grievous sin and the man’s blindness was a direct result of that sin. When they asked Jesus what sin had been committed, Jesus responded with this shocking statement:

“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

Wait. What?!

You mean to tell me that neither this man nor his family had committed any sin and yet he was afflicted with condition? Blind. No light, no color, no hope. A burden, a beggar, a blight on his community. No possibility of a future through no fault of his own.

It’s at that point that Jesus stoops to the ground, makes a clay paste, coats the man’s eyes with the paste, and commands him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Upon exiting the pool, the man is miraculously healed. He could see! The man then proceeds to proclaim the miracle to all who will listen. In fact, he proclaims it so much, it angers the local Pharisees who question both the man and his parents over this miracle. The man’s response to the Pharisees’ questioning just cracks me up! He repeatedly says, “I don’t know who Jesus is, whether He is a common sinner or the Son of God; all I know is that I was blind and now I can see. He healed me.” (JRV, Janelle Rodriguez version 😉).

“But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

The blind man endured a lifetime of hardship for this one encounter with Jesus. A chance to be healed and to bring God glory through his healing. A chance to show for all of eternity what God can do and continues to do. A chance to show future generations that some of our greatest blessings come through our most difficult trials. Our lowest points, our suffering, our most difficult trials give God the opportunity to be made manifest in our lives. We do not always know the purpose of our hardship. We cannot understand the mind of God. All we can do is remain faithful and continue to bring him glory.

There is so very much to be learned from this short story in John. Christ’s love, His compassion, His healing – but most of all His glory. Don’t be surprised or discouraged when you go through trials, but rejoice and be glad when God’s glory is revealed. 

I had a lot of fun stamping and creating ephemera for this page. 😊 I used the adorable Life & Lemons stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I first stamped the lemons on the background; then stamped the lemon and leaf, lemon slice, and lemon mason jar on regular cardstock paper, colored with ink and colored pencils and fussy cut them all out. I then tied a little piece of ribbon around the mason jar, inserted the lemon slice on the lid of the jar, and taped all the ephemera to the page. I then finished my stamping, highlighting, and added some splotches of color to finish out the page. So fun!

 

Would you take a minute today to read the story of the blind man in John 9 and pray for God's glory to be revealed through your life?

Much love in Christ, 

Janelle

@journalingjoy

"Fruit of the Spirit" Bible Verse Mini Flip Book

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." 

(Gal. 5:22-23)

I've had the chance over the last couple of months to do an in-depth study of the Fruit of the Spirit.  What I've discovered is that each fruit is an example of God's character represented in our lives, when we are walking and living by the Holy Spirit.  When I received my new Fruit of the Spirit stamp set, I decided to make a Fruit of the Spirit mini flip-book, with a key verse for each one.  

I started with some flat card fronts that I cut in half (you could easily use unlined index cards).  I started by stamping a fruit image onto each card, and then I adding one of the fruit words.

To do this I used a variety of alpha sets, including the new Chunky Lowercase, Skinny Minnie, Bitty Minnie, and Script Outline sets, as well as the Life in Jesus set.  

I added detailing to some of the letters with a while Uniball Signo Gel Pen. I also made a title card with all the fruit images around the border of the card.  

Next, I added color to each card by smooshing the ink from various Pitt Big Brush Markers. The point was to make the color look juicy and wet and spilled. 

I made an extra full card with the smooshed color, and then punched out tabs for my fruit cards. I hand-lettered each tab with the corresponding fruit, and attached it with a tiny stapler. 

Next, I splattered black watercolor paint to the cards with a thin paintbrush to contrast with the bright fruity colors. 

After that, I stamped the verse reference onto labels with the Bitty Minnie alpha, and embellished with some colorful enamel shapes. 

I then wrote out the Bible verses onto the backs of each card.  Finally, I punched holes into the corners of the cards, attached them together with a ring binder, and tied some colorful fabric bows onto the ring.

This mini-book can help me memorize and reflect on the key verses for each Spirit-fruit.  I love the finished product.  As a matter of fact, if you are planning on attending the Creative Worship Bible Journaling Retreat in September, I'm going to be leading a class on how to make these mini-books!  

May God bless you as you learn to grow and walk in the Spirit, and produce character fruit for Him! 

--Julie

Send Me Lord!

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8

 

 

Today I'm showcasing a new stamp set called "Send Me" by Rebecca Rios! I am IN LOVE with this set! It is so versatile and it is a HUGE set. So many words, so many ways to use them!

 

Here lately I've been asking the Lord to just send me! Let me go into the wilderness for you! I want to share your word with the community and shine your Glory! I recently started my own Blog, Journaling through Motherhood since the season I'm in right now is raising my #twoundertwo! It's a rewarding and crazy life and bible journaling has been the calm in my storm! I felt the Lord telling me to help other moms find that calm as well! So far I have a few friends now that are beginning journaling and LOVING IT! So he sent me into this and I am here to work for him! Every page I do is to shine for him and share his word! Everyone has a different work, this is mine (besides being chosen to raise these boys)!

 

I hope you guys get this stamp set and love it like I do and I hope if you find yourself in a different season you ask the Lord to "Send Me" and you listen!!

<3 Brittany

IG: britcarleton

 

 

Brand New - Living Water!

Perhaps you've been wondering when you might see some new Creative Worship stamps. Well, wonder no more! This week we are featuring our newest Creative Worship stamp set illustrated by Rebecca Rios called Living Water. It's got Rebecca's signature whimsical feel and the versatility you love.

This set includes 3 cloud images and many various water images, as well as specific words and phrases that will be perfect when journaling about water, which is a common theme throughout the Bible so I'm certain you will grab this set again and again. It's also wonderful for cardmaking and scrapbooking. Living Water also coordinates very nicely with the following Sweet 'n Sassy stamp sets: Happy Ocean Friends, Beauty by the Sea, Wish You Were Here, Flourish Seashells and many of our other Creative Worship sets.

For this amazing page, Rebecca used Living Water and Awesome Thoughts (the thought bubble in that set makes a great cloud!) Her watercoloring is exquisite, don't you think?

For my page I also used Living Water with my own lettering, as well as our What's Up Arrow dies and All of Me Alpha.

Our Creative Worship Team will be sharing more pages with you using Living Water in the near future!

Be still...and think awesome thoughts

Hello!

It's Tifany here from Ink Blots by TRD and I've got three Bible pages to share with you today (once again playing with some paint and stamps).

For the first page (Psalm 46), I used the Classy Script Alpha and Seek Him stamp sets from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps:

For this one I did a "plaid" look similar to a page I did previously, but this time I used paint instead of ink. After my plaid background was ready, I added my stamping and a few accents with a white paint pen.

While I had the Classy Script Alpha stamp set out, I stamped the words "burning bush" on this page:

The rest of the page is hand drawing layered with paint.

For my last page, I used the Awesome Thoughts stamp set. As soon as I saw it, the words "think awesome thoughts" just jumped out at me - so I knew I had to stamp them in my Bible. I added in some tone-on-tone stamping in the background with some stamps from the Fill Me Up set.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

{Philippians 4:8, NIV}

Have a great day!

As always, you can find a full supply list and all my posts pertaining to Bible art or journaling here.

King of kings

Hello!

It's Tifany here from Ink Blots by TRD and I'm back today with another Bible art/journaling page to share. The "art" part of this one I have been wanting to do for quite awhile - a plaid effect. Usually when I do my pages, my art ties in with the theme...but sometimes I just want a colorful background to stick some words on. (This was one of those times.)

For the plaid technique, I took a few different colors of ink and swiped them onto my page (which had been prepped with matte multi medium) using jumbo sponge daubers. I let each color dry before adding the next so that the colors would blend and not just get wiped away. Coming back to a page over and over again to add layers was great - it kept me thinking about the theme for several days. 

For the wording on this page, I mainly used the His Name stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I added in the ampersand (and those decorative 'x' marks on the background) using stamps from the Fill Me Up set. 

"God, the blessed and only Ruler,

the King of kings and Lord of lords,

who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light,

whom no one has seen or can see.

To him be honor and might forever.

Amen."

{1 Timothy 6: 15b-16}

As always, you can find my full supply list and all of my other Bible art & journaling posts here.

Fill Me With Peace

Good Morning- or should I say Good Afternoon!

(I wrote this sipping on my Sunday morning cup of coffee- cheers!)

This week I have been spending quite a bit of time licking my wounds and feeling a bit sorry for myself.  Unfortunately, I did not get the job I had my hopes set on.  I really felt like this was THE JOB I had been waiting for and was meant for me.  Keep in mind, I found this out a week ago Friday and I spent my entire week allowing this to bring me down and spiraled from there.  

With the spiraling not only did depression set in and questions of why I am not good enough? What could I have done differently?  So came into question- "what is God's Will for me?".  Did I not pray enough? Do I not say the right things when I pray?  Am I praying for my wants versus His will for me?  All of these questions tend to stir doubt in my soul.  In my heart I know He has a plan and the bible tells me this plan is much bigger than my own.  I just question whether or not I am worthy enough to be privy to this information anytime soon.  I get it- everything happens in His time.  When will His timing and His will be in sync with my own?  I guess I just don't understand what God wants from me. 

In all of this self pity and wallowing, I ran across a post yesterday that questioned whether the sadness we allow ourselves to sit in, is a result of (simply) a bad moment that we've allowed ourselves to "milk" into an extended amount of time.  Is this a bad day or a bad life- so to speak?  Am I bummed because I didn't get the job or is this really depression that I'm allowing to take over?  I find that I tend to do this.  Rather than picking myself up and dusting myself off, I tend to wallow in the mud.  I also find myself losing faith.

The page I did this week is a reminder to myself that prayer is powerful.  On this journey of faith that I am on, I am learning to trust and have faith- (I wish this was something that came to me easily).  Why does it seem God quiets when I feel I need to hear him the loudest?  All of these questions, I am taking to prayer with me.  I pray that Jesus will fill me up with peace, faith, trust and hope.  That he does in fact hear me and helps to open my heart to allow me to hear him during the silence.

Micha 7:7
"But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me."

 To complete this page I used "Fill Me Up" by Rebecca Rios stamp set.

Peace, love & blessings to you all,

Jamie

My Cup Overflows

Hello! 

It's Tifany from Ink Blots by TRD and I am back today sharing a Bible art & journaling page - this one comes from Psalm 23:

When I first saw the new Fill Me Up stamp set from Sweet n' Sassy Stamps I just couldn't help but think of Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd,

I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths 

for his name’s sake. 

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 

I will fear no evil, 

for you are with me; 

your rod and your staff, 

they comfort me. 

You prepare a table before me 

in the presence of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil; 

my cup overflows. 

Surely your goodness and love will follow me 

all the days of my life, 

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord 

forever.

(Psalm 23, NIV)

It is such a beautiful, peaceful, comforting Psalm. For the past little while (or maybe more like a year) it seems like things have just not slowed down. In a way that is such a blessing...and in other ways I feel a bit like I am drowning. Either way, we are so blessed and my cup truly is overflowing. 

Praise God!

As always, you can find my full supply list and all of my other Bible art & journaling posts here.

The creating of Note This

Rebecca here & I'm thrilled to be blogging in honor of my stamp set, Note This, being included in this month's Bible journaling kit. I thought I'd give you a look into my creative process in the designing of this set. I really wanted stamps that people could not only use while doing creative worship, but that would also be practical for Bible study and note taking.

 

I considered different responses I might have as I studied Scripture and those responses made their way (via handlettering!) in Note This. I wanted believers to be able to "Say Yes to" various truths or to stamp "God is..." when you discovered a new facet of His character. Other responses that came to mind were "remember", "Mark these words" and "right where He wants me".

 

There's even a mini lightbulb for documenting those AHA! moments while you're reading. These handlettered thoughts make great accents to artistic faith projects as well. I looooove stamping Amen at the end of journaled page (it's like my way of saying this page is done)!

 

I included a Note to Self design (perfect for sermon notes!) and even though it may seem simple, But God is there for all those times you want to highlight that He is the hero of every story. (I kind of just want to stamp this on every page!)

 

There's soooo many different ways to combine all these elements that I can't even list them all. Arrows and my signature ampersand round out the embellishments. Note This is perfect for your prayer journal, sermon notes, deep thoughts, and even to pretty up your planner! Happy Friday y'all & be blessed!