Our Wondrous God!

I am THRILLED to join all the talented artists at Word Art Wednesday as a guest designer for the month of September.  It's been awhile since I've even crafted much less entered challenges or been on a design team.  I've missed it, though for the season I was taking a respite from crafting I was blessed by homeschooling my grandsons.  They are now in school, flourishing and are quite the social dynamos!

As always, Karen Murray has designed some lovely word art for this month, so that's a second blessing in joining Word Art Wednesday this month.  Our featured scripture, which is FREE for you to copy and use is beautifully crafted.  The sponsors have generously provided some happy candy for randomly selected winners.  So come over to Word Art Wednesdays challenge blog and play along with us this week.  We'd love to see your inspiration.

So many people who surround me bear witness frequently to the marvelous and gracious gifts God bestows in their lives.  My family and I can certainly attest to some fiery trials that ended in wondrous blessing.  But I think we sometimes forget that when God moves to intervene in our lives, he not only does wondrous things...but He is one who ONLY does wondrous things. Every move of God is a miracle!

Whether God is granting favor, testing or disciplining, it is a miracle...a wondrous thing that He would care enough about who we are and who we become to intervene in our lives.  That He would stoop to our plane of existence and even deal with our humanness is amazing.  In fact, in order for Him to do just that, He gave His one and only Son--perfect, blameless, holy--made Him dwell in human flesh and die in our place that we might have relationship with our God.

When we trust what He did, and believe that He did it to redeem our broken relationship, we enter into an everlasting fellowship with God.  That in itself is wondrous enough.  Still, every day I live I see His miraculous handiwork.  He is indeed a good and mighty God who deserves our highest praise.

Thanks for peeking into my corner of the world and blessing me today.  I hope to see your creation at Word Art Wednesday this week. 

 

Loving God

Oh, my goodness.   Remember that funny little quip from Alice in Wonderland, "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get?"  That is so me right now.  I'm consistently running 2 days to a week or MORE behind!  Life is wonderfully full right now.  I recently started homeschooling my two new grandsons who arrived from the Philippines only 3 weeks ago. Oh, they are sweet and this is such a blessing to me.  At 8 and 10 they are the perfect teachable age for me, and I'm loving every minute of it.  After a career of teaching and school administration I feel like I can teach in my sleep.  Trouble is my body won't keep up with my enthusiasm!  We start each morning with Bible study...the ONLY place to start in my mind.  We give God the first and best part of our day.  And we are beginning at the beginning...creation!  So many wonderful things to learn.  But I hope their hearts will grasp primarily, the simple truth of our scripture challenge at Word Art Wednesday this week.  If I can invite them to love God, to trust Him and His Word, then I will feel like my mission in this endeavor has been accomplished.  I hope we learn lots of English, math, science, etc. too.  But learning to trust God is our priority.

I must say, since deciding to use up my plentiful stash (and that will take a long while), I've had so much fun mixing and matching what I have on hand.  I have so many delightful paper pads and embellishments, and had all but quit using them while promoting my own products through my digi business.  God has simply taken every single sad thought about closing my business and filled my days and my heart with wonderful delights.  I DO love my God and my heart's desire is to love Him more.

I think rather than commenting or filling this post with all my thoughts, I'll just leave you with these photos and encourage you to create from your own stash, then share with us at Word Art Wednesday. 

Thank you so much for blessing my day with YOU!

Word Art Wednesday: Desiring God

You've probably heard the quote: "When you find you have nothing but God, you discover He is all you need."  Each one of us has come to points in our life when we reach the end of our resources.  We are financially stretched to the max, emotionally taxed beyond our ability to cope, and physically worn out.  We don't have anymore, we can't give anymore and we can't go anymore.  Have you been there?
  

Most of our discouragements in life come because we expect too much or desire things that are not healthy for us.  We expect a trouble-free or at least a "trouble-freer" life and we want what we want when and how we want it....if we are honest, right?  Maybe this occurs to varying degrees and doesn't describe us most of the time, but each of us at some time has run after that which cannot satisfy and cannot fix what is broken.

Just imagine the pain and frustration we could alleviate if we would but turn to God and desire nothing but His grace over our lives, His power in all circumstances and His help in times of trouble. If we could only realize that all else but Him is flawed and finite.  If we want the resources of heaven to be showered upon us (and I'm not speaking about a prosperity gospel here), we would do well to fix our deepest desires upon the God of the universe.

I'm learning to love those faith-stretching times when I know that only God can redeem the circumstances in which I find myself.  I know there is no other place to turn and I've become faithful enough to really believe God will meet me at my point of need.  I truly believe when I need a miracle, He is ready to shower me with them; when I need refreshing, He has living water to splash over my spirit.  God is all I need...I am a work in progress for Him to be all that I desire.  I'm getting closer, and He is leading me to that point.

I hope you won't think I'm bragging, but I really do love the look of my Country Morning paper pack. First, I love the colors. As I was designing, the color scheme just emerged.  I didn't have a real plan.  But I happened upon this delicious aqua and thought black would contrast to it so nicely.  I also love the way my gingham turned out.

If you look closely at the gingham you will see specks and undertones of black.  At first, I was skeptical about mixing in black with such a light, bright color, but really the effect is quite yummy!  I love the gingham with the print too, and the boldness of black gives it a slight French Provential  look.   I was happy with the black and white flowers I added as accents.  I had some green leaf stick pins in my stash and I just used a black permanent sharpie to color it black, to echo the black leaves of the floral print. I stuck the pin just behind and above the black rose.

Here's my simple little project for our challenge.  And the verse presents a simple truth: There is nothing we should desire more that God. 

Daydream Designs Set(s) Used:

Country Morning Digi Papers

12 sheets / 12 x 12 / 300 ppi / resizable

$3.00

I do hope you will join us at the Word Art Wednesday blog for this week's link-up challenge.  We LOVE having your designs there and always look forward to what you will create.  Our sponsors are always amazing and there are always very excited winners.  It could be YOU! 

Thank you for blessing my day!

Diane

Word Art Wednesday: Personal Praises

Welcome to Word Art Wednesday and another opportunity to partner with us to encourage others through our personal art work.  We deeply appreciate everyone who links their creations to our challenge blog because we are always inspired.  We have a wonderful network of new and familiar friends who come Word Art Wednesday each week, and we want to say thank you for your support.

Karen Murray's WordArt this week is especially beautiful, both in graphic design and in her selection of scripture.  Amazing how she chooses all my favorites!  This one is especially powerful for me and my family this week as we praise Him for His divine intervention.

As some of you may know, my son and his wife have been facing a number of challenges during their first year of marriage.  She is finishing requirements for a more permanent status of her legal immigration, and my son is sponsoring her sons so they can join them here in the United States.  My daughter-in-law is also in a difficult struggle to terminate the guardianship of a woman who pretended to help her when she was brand new to our country.  It's a long story and though I have very strong feelings about how this woman betrayed an innocent young immigrant, I choose to focus instead on how God is working in the situation to reunite my three precious grandchildren with their mother and to experience the joys of being a real family.

This has been a long trial in every sense of the word, but we are seeing God's hand move in miraculous ways.  The boys immigration process was miraculously expedited through no human effort.  It is clear God intervened.  Today was a hearing regarding guardianship over my granddaughter and we can praise God for some clear indications He is working there too.  We believe it will not be long before the three children are living together again under one roof....and under the shelter of the Almighty.  So I just want to offer personal praise to my Sovereign God who rules the universe and still cares enough about us to step into the deepest part of hearts and lives.  He has proved to us He is indeed alive, He is a Rock to us when we are on otherwise sinking sand, and we want to exalt His name for His faithful and merciful love to us.

My older grandson, CJ who is 10, has been praying faithfully for months to be reunited with his mother and my son, "Daddy-Matt," and the little sister he hasn't seen for 2 years.  He was very protective of her and he continues to be so concerned about her situation.  His faith has amazed me, and I have prayed that God would listen to his prayers, and move on his behalf to favor him and grant him the desire of his heart.  What a precious young man he is, and he has already found his way to my heart.  I've prayed that God would grant CJ favor so that his faith would be increased and he would have the blessing of exalting and praising the name of Christ.  I believe we are witnessing answers to all our prayers.  My God IS a rock, and I love to exalt His name for His great mercy.

My card for this week was very, very simple. I thought it would be a great one to send to someone when I rejoiced in their good news.  I just tore a page from an old hymn book I found. 

Set Used:

Poppies for You

1 color image, 1 outline image, 4 digi papers and 5 sentiments

JPEG and PNG / 300 ppi/ can be resized

$4.00

FREEBIE FOR YOU

Black Gingham Sheet from Poppies for You

Offered FREE for a limited time

Thanks for stopping in, and I hope you enjoy 

the free scripture verse and paper.

Don't forget to head to Word Art Wednesday

 for the details of our challenge

and more projects created by other design team members.

Diane