Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas


"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." 
John 1:14

Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. The One who is our Savior and Lord, full of grace and truth. We celebrate that in Christ God became visible. God chose to dwell on earth among His people. Emmanuel ~ God with us ~ in this we celebrate!

"The invisible becomes visible. God becomes touchable, reachable, knowable."
 ~Doug Rumschlag

"If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: 'God with us.' We tend to focus our attention at Christmas on the infancy of Christ. The greater truth of the holiday is His deity. More astonishing than a baby in the manger is the truth that this promised baby is the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth."
~John MacArthur

"The Son of God became man to enable men to become sons of God."
~C. S. Lewis

"Christ is born to us today, in order that He might appear to the whole world through us."
~Thomas Merton

Merry Christmas to you and your families.
 May you know true joy and peace in Christ today.



Saturday, December 13, 2014

January Sneak Peak

For the past month I have been busy getting ready for the start of Take Me Deeper, a free weekly devotion and art challenge being offered for 2015 in out new faith art community His Kingdom Come (HKC). We begin on January 2 and I had the privilege to write the devotions for January in partnership with Diane Marra. In all honesty, I don't often read devotions. I lean toward more in-depth Bible study and reading and don't normally let other things, like devotions, cut in on that time. But since our theme is "Take Me Deeper" I found that I really enjoyed writing devotions that utilized my love for Bible Study. I hope you'll join us in January and journey with us through the year. We will have a variety of people writing devotions and offering art challenges, plus we will have a year long journey with choosing and using a word called logos365.

Anyway, all of this prep for the devotions and getting my art journal pages ready has used most of my art time. And since we are launching in January, I can't share with you until then. This has presented a new challenge for me since I blog about my art and my faith and I have had no art to post! But I can tease you with some sneak peaks from my January pages!






I enjoyed writing the devotions so much that I believe you will see more of them here on my blog in the future. On Christmas day we begin a new series at church working our way through the Gospel of John. I am excited about this on a number of levels. First, I love when we go though an entire book of the Bible. God always shows us things we didn't expect when we journey through a book. Second, John is one of my favorite books of the Bible. John uses some words repeatedly that will be interesting to explore - believe, world, sent, life - just to name a few. We have no idea how long we will be in this book.You can expect some devotions and some art from this book during our time in John's gospel. :)

It is Christmas weekend at camp. We brought 10 kids and two teen leaders to camp this weekend. I love the experience they have here for Christmas. The staff at Youth Haven really makes a meaningful and joyful experience for kids who come from families who are struggling in a variety of ways. Tonight they will be served a Christmas dinner as though they are in a fancy restaurant. We have 11 adults from our church traveling up to camp who will serve as waiters for the kids. If the weather cooperates we may go Christmas caroling tonight. Then tomorrow they will see a skit of the Christmas story, celebrate Jesus' birthday and receive presents. A room full of 50 kids and a dozen teens full of excitement is a joy to experience! I am so thankful to be a part of it and to have these kids in my life.

I'm also thankful for good Internet connection this weekend so I can post this! It isn't always the case here at camp. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

November Documented

About the only art I've done this past month was keeping up with the Documented Life Project. Well, I have done art behind the scenes getting ready for the His Kingdom Come Community projects that will launch on January 2, but I'll have to wait to share those. Are you curious? Join us here. I'm pretty pumped up about the projects we have created so I will keep making shameless plugs!

On to Documented Life:
Week 45



Week 46


Week 47





It's time to return to work today and leave vacation mode. :)

Monday, December 1, 2014

Monday Meandering 12.1.14


I am in shock that today is December 1st!

I've been absent for a few weeks. First trying to meet some deadlines before vacation, then getting ready for vacation, and then, actually going on vacation! We spent Thanksgiving week in Charleston, SC with our oldest daughter and her husband. On the way down we spent a day going through the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Besides spending time with our daughter, we also connected with family d friends. We had brunch in Charlotte with my husbands cousins, had dinner one night with our nephew, brother-in-law and others, and on Monday we met my online friend Bernice Hopper for coffee. Bernice and her husband happened to be in the states for vacation and in Charleston at the same time we were. It is Bernice who invited me to participate in the development of the His Kingdom Come faith art community and it was great meeting her in person!

We had perfect weather in the park and, despite three days of rain, we managed to take in the sites of Charleston and the beach.











We had a good trip.

I have selected my word for 2015:


In my last post I introduced Logos365. You can read more about it here or at His-kingdom-come.com. I usually will spend time between Christmas and New Year's Day reviewing the past year and looking ahead and in this process determine my word for the year ahead. But this year I did that early in preparation for the Logos365 launch in January. Picking a word and living with it for a year has been a great practice keeping me focused and open for God's transforming work.I hope you'll join us!

Anna Pasquale has a great post on her blog today about artsy gifts. She was kind enough to include links to shops of her artist friends. Thanks Anna! Anna is the coordinator of the 2014 Made course.

Later this week I'll post my November Documented Life Project pages. It was good re-connecting with all of you!