CONFIDENTLY LOVED

Greetings Illustrated Faith Family!

I pray this post finds you well!  

I was so excited to receive the new Through Christ devotional by Meg Duerksen today!  It arrived just in time to write my Illustrated Faith post.

Let me tell you, I have never met this sweet sister in Christ who blesses artists with her Craft House events but when I saw pictures of her house — and THE rainbow stairs — well — she had me.   Forever fan and hopeful guest someday.  Here’s a link so you can check out the house and mission —  http://www.megduerksen.com/rent-the-craft-house/ — maybe I will see you there someday!

I cracked open the rainbow cover of the devotional; and on the first page, in clear, clean lettering is the Word, CONFIDENCE.  I paused and I thought, “gosh God, will I ever get that?  Will what I know to be true in my head ever make it to my heart and soul?”  I love how God brings reminders and messages just when you need them.  He is always building His children up.  All we have to do is seek Him and be still enough to listen.

Truth — We can be confident in Him.   We do not need to look to the world or to people for confidence.   And you know why we can be confident?  He loves us UNCONDITIONALLY.  Yep, UNCONDITIONALLY.  Just check out Meg’s referenced scripture, Romans 8:35-38

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  …No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I flipped to Romans in my Journaling Bible and the page was empty, just waiting for this message.  Empty pages are not easy to come by in this Bible so I knew it was the right scripture to illustrate.

I began journaling.  

I wanted to reflect Meg’s devotional design.  It has clean lines and beautiful rainbow colors so I printed off block letters for the word “loved” using my computer.

This is a great tip for transferring any style of lettering into your Bible.  It’s the advantage of the thinner pages!  Slip a printed version of any font behind your page and trace the lettering.  In this case, I also manipulated the vertical spacing between the letters a bit and then I wrote “confidently” in my own handwriting along the side.

At first I thought I would color the letters with Faber Castell markers so I experimented with the colors on the bottom of devotional booklet.  It was fun to make a rainbow scribble stack.  It reminded me that I am like the rainbow, every cell and characteristic ordered, created by God; and that in Him, I am beautiful.

The markers were vibrant; but after playing a bit, I decided to use my old faithful watercolors.  Boring, I know, but hear me out.  There is a reasoning behind my choice.

I chose watercolors because I was able to splatter the page with wet paint.  Even though I wanted the page to reflect the clean lines of the devotional, let’s face it, I am a messy creature.   Loved but messy!  Perfection will never be my goal in Bible Journaling.

I adored the simplicity of the page at this point and might have left it just like this; but I really wanted to include part of Meg’s words because they made my heart pitter patter in truth —

The world says our confidence is found in appearance, wealth, or stature.  But God says our confidence is in Him — knowing that He is guiding us, loving us, died for us to save us, and will never leave us.  That is how we can stand tall every day.  Our confidence is not in our own abilities but in God’s.

Being of small stature (5 ft to be exact), a former dancer, and a Yoga girl, “stand tall” means something to me.  It means I can stand strong, in a tall posture reaching upward in grace toward my heavenly Father, I can breathe knowing He’s got me and that He will hold me up through anything.  I am tall in Him because He makes me so.

I pulled out a stamp from Meg’s kit and made several impressions of the cute “My Father Tells Me” stamp.  Perfect for inserting “stand tall.”

After that, I searched for more embellishments among the treasures in the kit and broke out the new Designer Clips from Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd.

I cut off the bottom rainbow strip from the kit.  I love to cut apart and punch out the kit’s patterned card stock in unusual ways.  I layered the top of the Bible journaling page with my selections.  I love the #Real Life clip.  Don’t you?

And with that, the page was complete.

Thank you Meg Duerksen for the reminder to be CONFIDENT in Him!  I can’t wait to see what other goodness and truth she has to write about!   

Hugs friends, stand tall — you are LOVED by God UNCONDITIONALLY.

In His grace,

amy

ESV Leather Journaling Bible | Illustrated Faith Day Springs Devotional – Through Christ by Meg Duerksen | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Words Designer Clips – coming soon | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Precision Pens .65 | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Black Stamp Pad | Angora Watercolors