Illustrated Faith | Laura McCollough

Hello! My name is Laura McCollough from A Kiss on the Chic and I am SO excited to be guest blogging today for this wonderful community of believers! I live in Southern California with my three daughters and my hardworking hubby. I own a small business that has grown into such a complete blend of all my passions and I truly give all the glory to the Lord for that! I’ve been in the scrapbooking and mixed-media world for over 10 years and have been on several design teams, owned a “kit club” and have taught many classes. My business has grown over the years into the most amazing thing to me… A way to share my love of travel, my passion for recording our memories and my desire to share the love of the Lord with others! I often wonder how this all happened, but it’s not that difficult to look back and see the hand of God in every step. That is why I have done my journaling for this blog post on the Prayer of Jabez.
I have been very blessed to have traveled many places in this amazing world with my family. I have asked myself many times “why us Lord?” Why did we take a year off and travel the world? Why do we get to go back to Italy every year? It wasn’t because we just had a bag of money sitting there for all of this. Hahaha It wasn’t until just about over a year ago that I finally realized the WHY. It’s a long story and I would LOVE to share it with you someday, but here’s what I realized:
The Lord has AMAZING plans for our lives… If we open ourselves up to them!

I know the Lord is directing our path and I know he gave us a heart for people and especially the people in Italy. We have made many friends and real connections with people around the world and I know the Lord has opened that door and “enlarged our territory” for a reason.
Since 2012 I have hosted Creative Retreats in Italy and it has been such a BIG blessing in my life! I get to bring amazing teachers together with people who want to travel AND be creative at the same time! I’ve met such wonderful people from all over the globe and it has been such a true JOY to do this as my job. From the very start I wanted to do a faith based retreat but I was really bringing together scrapbooking/mixed media teachers and students and didn’t know how to incorporate my faith into these Creative Retreats. I know they “knew” I was a Christian and I would put little scripture photos on top of their class kits each day and do other little things like that. But it wasn’t until THIS year that I felt the Lord telling me it was time… Time to go out in FAITH and do a full on faith based Creative Retreat! And you want to know how he was nudging me?
I would see these beautiful pictures on Pinterest of people doing CREATIVE things in their BIBLES!! I was totally AMAZED. It blew me away and I knew it was something I wanted to do from the very first photo I ever saw. This new way to express our faith AND be creative in our bibles just sparked a fire within me! I knew I would want to do that if I every did a faith based retreat… This was all happening at the same time I was praying about WHEN to do a faith based Creative Retreat. I wasn’t sure when, I wasn’t sure what it would look like and I wasn’t sure who to ask to come teach with me.

But the Lord knew. He gave me words of comfort and quietly told me “now” was the time. He directed my path to right people, he showed me what we should be doing, and I can’t tell you how excited I am about my first Art & Faith Creative Retreat in Italy next summer!! It’s amazing to see the Lord working and blessing things and I pray that he will continue to direct my path in all areas of my life.