Daydream Designs by Diane: Hope Endures

It's Wednesday and time for another Word Art Wednesday challenge. If you haven't played with this challenge, you should really try. It's one of the most flexible and you get tons of inspiration from the many participants. Just check out our main page...details, sponsor and your project linking information is all there.

Our scripture inspiration is free for you to use on your project, but not a requirement. Still, isn't this biblical challenge a big one...let your speech be ALWAYS with grace? There have been more times than I can count where I have spoken to someone, then later wished that I had said something different, said more, said less....or not said anything at all! Knowing how to fill your speech with grace might not be difficult if you are preparing to deliver a speech. You have the time to carefully craft your words. But to fill even casual conversations with grace always...every time....now that is a challenge. It takes practice. Here a smaller challenge. Practice concentrating on what you say to everyone you encounter for just one day. And season that day's conversation with grace...with encouragement, with hope, with love, with forgiveness, with kindness. Just one day. Can you do it?

Recently a woman in our church shared the tragic story of a young couple who were expecting their second child. The baby had life threatening heart conditions so severe that doctors offered scant hope of the baby's survival to full-term birth, much less life outside the womb. Yet this young mother, a woman of deep faith, responded to everyone's inquiries with such grace and faith. And the woman in our church who spoke frequently with the mother offered her encouragement and extended opportunities to so many people to pray for this family. So many graceful conversations in the midst of a very trying, heart-wrenching time.

Another woman in my Sunday morning Bible study class shared about a young 7 year old child who was terminally ill with cancer and was nearing the end of her days. Not even knowing her friends or their daughter, I was sick at heart and full of grief for them. It seems lately I've heard of so many parents who are suffering unbearably through their children's devastating physical challenges.

I thought it was appropriate to design a card that symbolized both the realities I've shared. First, we are challenged to fill our conversations with grace. Even those chatting-over-coffee conversations. Ones where you are being yourself...which is to be an ambassador of Christ. The cup on this card represents our most unguarded conversations with those closest to us. The yellow mug and digi paper is from our Hope Endures cancer awareness line--the yellow set, which represents awareness of cancer in children among other challenges. You'll notice the words in the background...hope, courage, cure, believe, faith, healing.

Are our conversations filled with words that encourage hope and faith, and offer healing to broken and despairing hearts? I admire these women in our church who offered the precious gift of gracious words to hurting people. I love both of them and have been blessed by them myself. I trust that their gentle spirits and gracious words were a healing balm to their grief-stricken friends. My friends have had to practice such graciousness...it would have to come naturally to them to be able to deliver in trying times. And I know they did.

Card Ingredients:

Cardstock--Whisper White (to print images and digi paper), Old Olive / SU
Digi paper--Hope Endures (Yellow Papers)
Designer Paper (SU-retired)
Images--Hope Endures: Yellow Awareness Set; Pumpkins and Sunflowers Color Set

Sets Used:

Hope Endures: Yellow Awareness Set

(Outline version available, sold separately)

8 color images / JPEG and PNG / 300 dpi

$3.00

Hope Endures Yellow Paper Pack

8 sheets / 6 x 6 / 300 dpi / resizable

$3.00

Pumpkins and Sunflowers Color Set

(Outline version available, sold separately)

11 color images / JPEG and PNG / 300 dpi

$4.00

Thanks for stopping in!

Diane

But God will never forget the needy;
the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

Psalm 9:18

My husband has pastored for years and now serves as a hospice chaplain among his other busy jobs. He and I have both been blessed to experience first hand the power of hope in hurting people. The human spirit craves life, and even when life diminishes, rarely is hope extinguished. Embers of hope glow even more brilliantly among those who know in whom their hope lies. Believers have been given a precious promise from God. He will never....never...forget the afflicted child of God. Their hope endures because God's promise to them will never perish. I watched the face of an elderly lady in our church literally glow with the hope that was hers, and she was less than 24 hours from seeing her hope burst into unimaginable victory.

We can hold out the power of hope to those who need it, and celebrate with those who have conquered the worst of challenges. Daydream Designs honors all who have won and lost while here in this life with our collection called Hope Endures. Here are a few of my cards using the sets.

For the these cards I used the yellow sets--images and papers. Yellow can represent bladder or bone cancer, but always represents the tragedy of childhood cancer.

The card below showcases the purple/lavendar set--used for a variety of cancers and diseases, like Alzheimer's.

The most common color in Awareness ephemera we see is pink representing breast cancer. Few of us would be untouched by the far-reaching results of this challenge.

These sets are now available in our store, Daydream Designs. I'll just post the photos of the individual sets so you can see them, but go to our Hope Endures: Awareness Sets page for product information.

Pink Ensemble (Breast Cancer)