"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:4-7
I was a worrisome child growing up. I worried about anything and everything. I worried about car accidents, and weather, and tests, and sports, and illness - literally everything. I worried about things that were within my control and things that weren't. Finally, when I was in my early teens, I had a talk with my mom about my worrying habits and she encouraged me to spend some time in God's Word studying what He has to say about "peace" and to pick a verse to hold onto when I'm in my worrying mode. I spent quite a bit of time looking through every single verse that discussed the topic of peace and finally settled on John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (See my illustration of this verse in my recent Instagram post here.) This verse became my life verse and I still reference it frequently.
Philippians 4:6 tells us exactly what to do when we are filled with worrisome thoughts -- take it to the Lord in prayer. Don't worry, but take everything (whether big or small) to the Lord in prayer, making your request known to him with a thankful spirit (JRV, Janelle Rodriguez Version 😉). Our all-knowing God already knows each request before we even think it, but He wants us to learn to communicate with Him all our wants and needs. 1 Thessalonians tells us to pray without ceasing. That means an ever-constant stream of communication with our Heavenly Father, sharing every aspect of our life with Him. When we are in constant communication with God, praying about everything, it will become easier to give our worries over to God and trust Him to care for our every need. 💛
You wouldn't know it by looking at the page now, but this page was a hot mess all week. Seriously. It took me about a week to finish. 😲 I started the page when I had some alone time, but then my teenage boys came home from soccer practice and my house went into an uproar. I should have just set it aside and come back to it, but I didn't - I tried plugging along and ended up smearing and smudging my way through the page.
I was so exasperated, I finally did end up setting it aside for a few days and came back to it later in the week. (If I could just offer a bit of advice here: if you're working on a page and you have too many distractions or your heart just isn't in it, set it aside and come back to it when you're ready. Trying to force your way through finishing a page takes all the fun out of it, and ruins your fellowship time with your Heavenly Father.)
There was no fixing my donut smudge, so I prayed about it and tried to think of a way to creatively cover it up and keep with the theme of the page. In comes the texture paste!! 😊 I took a little blob of texture paste, mixed it with some purple acrylic paint and dabbed/smudge it in a couple different spots on the page, with a particularly large dab over my smudged donut. I then splattered the page with a bit more purple ink and positioned my donut ephemera how I wanted it on the page. I taped it all down, added white gel accents to my stamping and called it good.
When it was all said and done, it turned out fairly decently, and knowing the story behind how the page came to be even further illustrates the verse. Don't worry, trust God, and bring everything to Him in prayer - even if it is something so inconsequential as a smudged bible journaling page. 😉
Have a wonderful week in the Lord!
Janelle
@journalingjoy
I used the Donut Worry and Trust in Jesus stamp sets to create this page. I LOVE these stamp sets! They have so many uses. The Donut Worry stamp set is the September Stamp of the Month and is FREE with your $75 order. While you're shopping, take advantage of the Sweet & Sentimental sale going on through the end of September!
