Bring a Gift of Laughter

When you think of birthdays, what comes to mind? Do you have a favorite memory from childhood? Did you have special parties with lots of friends, or celebrate with family?

Growing up, because my dad was in the Air Force, we were often away from family when birthdays rolled around. But, that didn’t mean we were without birthday fun!

Momma always baked a cake...either a carrot cake or our family favorite, a Sam Houston cake. Daddy would grill burgers and hot dogs for us. We had an old fold up metal table that was about 6 foot long. It was blue in case you were wondering.

In the middle of the living room was that long table filed to the brim with all the fixings and surrounding the table would be neighborhood friends and my family. I can still hear the giggles, smell the food, and taste that cake!

What a precious gift my parents would give me...they were creating memories for me. Nearly 50 years later, I still remember this one particular party. I couldn’t tell you what any of the gifts were, but I can sure recall the love that was in our home that day.

I used to always curl up next to Momma and Daddy and tell them how happy the day made me. Even then, I was a people person and got my batteries charged by being with everyone. I’m sure that my parents hearts were full hearing that my heart was full. 

In Psalm 100, we are told “On your feet now—applaud GOD! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭100:1-2‬ ‭MSG‬

Imagine with me how full God’s heart must be when we stand on our feet, throw up our praise hands, and with laughter shout out to Him “wow, God...you are so good!” 

Praising God with laughter and joy is the gift He deserves! Not because He has done a thing for us...but just because He is God. And He is good. And love. And just. And merciful. And and and. He is God and He is worthy of all our praise!

As I reflect on this birthday that has just passed, my heart is so full. God truly blessed me as many of you loved on me with your sweet words, thoughtful prayers, and love over a meal. I want to praise God for loving me in this way.

But mostly, I want to lift up my praise hands, with laughter in my heart, just because He is God!!

Art behind the story:

The Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps new October All Wrapped Up set was perfect for me for this month!! I loved using it to stamp all the birthday presents. It’ll be great for Christmas...and for year round. I stamped several presents, used the stamp of the month Texture Tiles 4 for “coloring” the presents, and then fussy cut and paper pieced them. The words from the Women of Praise set were perfect for this passage. The background was done with a watercolor wash and then the “confetti” paint drops were splattered on top.

Have fun creating!

Gayle
Patio Ponderings

Praise God for His unspeakable gift

Hello everyone! I hope you had a lovely Christmas! The Christmas days reminded me of this verse in Corinthians: Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift (2 Corinthians 9:15). It's amazing that God would give us his own life, and not only his life. He wanted to experience the same things as we do as a human. The happy and beautiful moments, but even the pain and vulnerability. He has experienced moments of joy and despair. No matter what we feel, He knows it. Because He wanted to become a human, to save us all. An amazing gift I can't comprehend.

I love the banner and the birds from the 'Give Praise' stamp set and decided to use them for this page. I made my background first with some distress inks, I used pretty light colors so I didn't mask anything on my page. I sprayed a little bit of fixative spray on top of the distress inks because my bible paper is really smooth and thin and doesn't really absorb the inks. This way they will stick to the page better (and take a shorter time to dry so that's another reason I use the spray a lot with my inks). But because the fixative spray I use is water based it gives some 'drops' on the background. I love the playful effect they give to the pages so I don't mind it. 

After the background has dried I stamped the images with black ink. I used a grey ink for the banner because it touches the messages in my bible and I still want to be able to read them. This way the black words still shine through the banner. The word 'praise' is in the stamp set too, for the rest of the message I used a black fineliner. 

For this page I used the set 'Give Praise'.

- Lucinde