Guidance and Comfort From God

1:24 p.m.
This morning I prayed to God and asked him for some direction regarding an unfortunate situation that we have found ourselves in and he more than exceeded what I asked for with his words. I asked for advice. He not only gave me that but comforted me as well. I now feel capable of proceeding boldly with the difficult decision we have to make.

This was the first message he gave me. I was very thankful as I colored it in..

This was the second. The part about calming all my fears especially spoke to us. 

Eric was very worried and concerned before he went to bed.

This morning when I showed him these verses they really put his mind at ease

and I am grateful to God for that.

This was the last one. How can we doubt that God has our back in the situation we have found 

ourselves in? It's so clear that He is here to protect us, calm our fears, and support us.

It is his direction that we are following as we pray daily for his guidance.

This is the place he has guided us too. It it wasn't why would his word speak so clearly

about it? I feel confident that we will come through this. There will be some inconvenient 

consequences, but nothing like the burden we are under now.

11:58 p.m.
Go has blessed me with so many uplifting verses today. I almost couldn't keep up as they were coming in.

This design was printed in my Inspire Bible. I added the roses, lupine flowers, and the bees because it was just the words before and that seemed to need a little embellishment.

This one was my favorite to color today because, you guessed it, it had a chickadee in it. I'm very fond of pink cherry blossoms so that's the color I made the flowers. Believe it or not there are 3 different colors of pink flowers. I used a light layer of May Green as the background and it gave the whole piece an oriental look which I love. I used two shades of red on the verse and made it look like the words were made of satin ribbon.

I had this design in my other Bible that I gave away. I'm so glad that there was a blank column on this page with the second version of the creation story so I could draw this.

Once again this verse was the lettering only and I felt it needed embellishment so I added the border and the green vine.

This one didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. It seems a bit overcrowded.

Well, that's all the art for today.

New Art!

Today my meditation is about trust which is so appropriate since I'm considering going back to work and with my mental challenge (Bipolar Disorder) that has assured that I haven't been very successful than that. I'm on disability and have been since 1998. I know many of you may think I'm lazy but I assure you...I am not.

So here's the Scripture verses that I received today. Both are about trust. The first was just something simple I drew. The second is a design in my Bible.

A Purpose Driven Life: Chapter Two

 You Are Not An Accident

Now this is a very important chapter to me because I am adopted and in the past I had always felt like I was a mistake, unworthy, less than perfect...unlovable and flawed. But this chapter states that I am perfectly made by God. My parents may have been inconsiderate or as the book states illegitimate.

Here's a quote:
 You are not an accident.
Your birth was no mistake, an your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did...You are alive because God wanted to create you! The Bible says, "The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me."

God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of  your skin, your hair, and every other feature. He custom made your body just the way he wanted it. He also determined the natural talents you would possess and the uniqueness of your personality.

Now I used to be plagued by the ideas and feeling I had about who I was and why I was given up until I met my birth mother. I have 3 older brothers, David, Raymond and George. I look just like my mother. It was so life changing to have met her and them. But it was not to be. She cut off all contact with me and rejected me again. But because I had met her I now knew that it was her selfishness and not my adoption and consequent feelings about being unworthy dissipated and I was able to move on past that tragedy and live my life from a different perspective. It was no longer MY fault that I was given away. I was worthy and deserving of love. What an eye opener.

But this chapter was life changing too. How wonderful it is to find out that God designed every feature about me with purpose. How exciting!

New Month - New Art!

8:26 a.m.
I got this out of my Whatever is Lovely inspirational coloring book. It's my first drawing out of it. I've never really done anything like this; at least not at this scope. I think I might have used a little too much pink. Oh well, live and learn.

The Purpose Driven Life: Chapter One

I started reading A Purpose Driven Life and it's changing the way I think about my life. My whole perspective is changing so I'm going to add what I'm learning to this blog.

This first section is called What Am I Here For?
and the firs chapter is It All Starts with God.

The scripture verses are Colossians 1:16 and a quote:

Unless you assume a God, the question
of life's purpose is meaningless.

Bertrand Russell, atheist

So basically the first line says: It's not all about you.
Now in today's world the general consensus is it IS all about me, so this first line upset me a little, but after reading further I discovered that I'm free to live a happy life and make choices to achieve that but that my PURPOSE in life is determined by God.

Wow! Imagine that. I have a purpose designed specifically for me and I'm not in the driver's seat with that. How exciting and freeing that is. I wonder what my purpose is. I'm sure God will direct me until I discover for myself what that purpose is.

A Day of Delights

12:58 p.m.

Today has been a busy morning for me so far. I was up early and was able to complete a few pages before heading off to classes. Now that I'm home for lunch I finished up with 1 Peter and 1 John.

This one was a lot harder to draw than it looks. In fact, it probably took me about 30 minutes to get the measurements for the keyboard keys down pat. I had to be careful using the marker to make the black keys. Since there's no illustration on the back side of the page it didn't really matter if it bled through a little. I was fortunate that it didn't but I wanted to save that column for notes anyway.

My Prayer List Page+Lots More

Well, here it is almost 2:30 in the morning and I'm up working on Bible journaling. Could this be a new addiction? I can't think of anything more beneficial to be addicted to. :)

Here's my prayer list for my children, their spouses and their children. I saw something similar to this on Facebook but I added my own twist. It's a great way for me to remember all of their birthdays, too. I used a piece of washi tape to mark it.

3:02 a.m.
I'm still up and this is the latest one I've accomplished. I want the glass of the salt shaker to look like the pale green glass they used on old-fashioned Coke glasses. I like that it turned out nicely because the "salt" is really white.

3:31pm

Still haven't been back to bed yet. I'm powered by coffee at this point, but after this post I'm heading off to bed for a nap.

I thought this would be an interesting take on a lighthouse. Usually they are red and white or black and white.

 I thought orange hibiscus would be different from the red ones that are so popular. I think it turned out nicely.

 It took me a while to do all the different colors in the waves.

This was fun to do because of all the rainbow colors.

7:52pm

I've been busy coloring more pages. I did manage to lay down for a nap and woke up rested and ready to color more. I did this page to commemorate my birthday. My name means industrious like a bee and the flower for the month of May is the Lily of the Valley so that's what I drew. I also highlighted my favorite verses in Chapter 31.

I'm going to switch to my new coloring book Whatever is Lovely that I bought at Walmart for $10. It's $14.99 at Michael's. I also bought the Inspirational Coloring for Mom coloring book for $9. It's normally $10 so that wasn't such a great deal but I've never seen one and I really like the art in it. Unfortunately, the pages are too long to tape them into my Inspire Bible. Drat!

11:08pm

I haven't made it over to my coloring books yet. I'm still in my Bible. I colored this one in and used a piece of washi tape to mark it's location because I'm such a worry wart and this will really help me when I'm worried about something like going for a job interview the next day...

I just finished the Lord's Prayer. The title Our Father was written with an old English font so for me it sort of set the tone. I wanted my piece to look like an old-fashioned Victorian Sampler, so I used muted purples, peaches and rose colors. I did a lot of blending too.

Inspire Cover Page

6:43 p.m.
I've been working on this piece for the past few hours. There's been a lot of shading involved. I'm very happy with the way it turned out but I have to say I had a real hard time deciding what color to make the flowers. Finally, I resorted to the internet for inspiration. I looked up lilies and roses. I found it odd that the illustrator put carnations attached to dogwood blossoms, but there you have it. I made them more violet than the dogwood flowers which are a light lavender with pink overtones. The roses are a pale peach. I colored the birds to represent my precious mountain bluebirds. One of the butterflies is kingfisher blue with deep orange and golden yellow spots the other is purple with orange yellow spots.

Encouraging Words

Today is my birthday...

It's 6:00 am and I'm up so I decided to do some Bible journaling. I'm concerned about an interview I have today to get into the PET program. Gaining entrance to this would mean I could get a job as a Peer Support Specialist/Counselor and could get off of disability with a decent wage and hopefully benefits.

I know that God wants nothing but the best for me, but I am a little concerned about what I should say so I come across as a competent and intellectual candidate. So I'm going to read from my Bible and see where the Lord takes me.

6:30am

Well, I got some encouraging words. Words of strength and direction. It can't be any plainer than that!

I still feel led to read more so I'm going to do that now...

7:30 a.m.

I just finished reading and God spoke to me through His Word once again. Words of comfort.

8:00 p.m.

It's been a long day, but I'm happy to say that I went boldly into my interview and God guided my words just as He promised. I think I made a good impression. They told me they'd let me know tomorrow by an email if I got in or not.

As I look at the drawing above I know that I can rest easy because it's all in God's hands now.

Seven New Designs

An Afternoon of Journaling

3:44 PM
I had classes in the morning so I got a late start, but I've been thoroughly enjoying the book headings I've been working on. I still have quite a few to go. So far I've done these four.

Here's my first one of the day... I used Prang and Derwent colored pencils using lots of layering of colors. The don't show up well in the photo though. The lettering is in a dark green, the words "gracious" and "merciful" are in Rose with Lake Red on top of that. With the word "love" I put shading in on all of the curves to give it a 3D effect. The colors I used were red orange for the shading and rose for the top color. I did the same for "Nehemiah". I could have done the boulders in gray but I liked the warm shades of Golden Brown with Terracotta over the top much better. This was a pre-drawn design found on page 548 of the Bible.

The verse is one that I should remember every day because I constantly screw up. Isn't it nice to know that God looks through Jesus at our sins and forgives us totally when we do?

 

I had a lot of fun coloring this one. The words "Proverbs, Wisdom," "Knowledge," and "good judgment" are all done in Prang's color rose with red lake as a top color. Lord and Holy one are done in Derwent's color of golden brown with Prang's Golden Yellow as a top layer.  I did the background in Prang's soothing color yellow green. This is a pre-drawn design found on page 743 of the Bible.

Isaiah was done in a combination of sea colors. It is very soothing to look at. This design came pre-drawn in the Bible. It's on page 805.

Habakkuk was a joy to color. It's found on page 1124 of the Bible. Once again it's a pre-drawn design and not one of my own. I love the vibrant colors and the French Country feel of the fruit. I used a soothing color palette of deep reds, muted purples, olive green and deep greens. The name of the book is done in Copper Beeches which looks like a shiny penny even though the camera couldn't pick that up.

 Well, that's it so far today.

Seven New Pages

It's been a busy Sunday for me starting out with the 10:45 service at church and then some shopping. Still I was able to 7 new drawings. I think I'm getting the hang of this. I'll tell you what page the drawing is found on if it came in the Bible and if I drew it myself then I'll tell you that. This way you can see what pieces come in the Bible if you want to buy one for yourself.

 Okay, I'm not thrilled with this one. I colored the cross in so I could put the bible tab on not thinking about the color scheme I would want to use, so this is not my favorite piece. It's on page 576.

 This is my favorite piece of the day. I love this verse. Since it talked about seasons I did the tree on the left in fall colors and the tree on the right like a spring tree budding. The heading and the word "heaven' are done in Copper Beeches which as I told you in an early post looks like a shiny copper penny. My camera just can't pick it up. This piece is on page 786.

 I had a good time meditating on this verse as I colored it. The verse reminds me how much I need to commit more verses to memory. This drawing is found on page 621.

 This was something basic. It originally only had the heart and the text, but I added the clouds and turned the heart into a balloon by adding a string. It's found on page 745.

 This was another beautiful piece to color on. I'm rather fond of cherry blossoms so that's the color I made the flowers. Jeremiah is done in orchid. This drawing is on page 898.

 This time dogwoods were my inspiration. The drawing can be found on page 981 in the Inspire Bible.

This is my last piece today. I had fun coloring in the beautiful waterfall and flowering plants alongside it. I used the same color that I used in the water to color in the words Mighty Flood and Endless River. AMOS and Living are in gold. The flowers are in the color Rose in my Prang pencil collection.