Bible Journaling for Today

Actually it was yesterday - and I was whooped, however,

I did do my devotions in the morning and

Oswald Chambers writings spoke to me.

Isaiah 49:5 and hopefully now, he will speak to you.

And now, saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be His servant.

That we are brought into the realization of God's

great purpose for the human race, i.e.,

I am created for God, He made me.

It is a joyful realization - that we have to learn to rely on the

tremendous creative purpose of God and keep our soul open to Him

in order to glorify him.

The margin of the page was gessoed and splotted with mist.

The alpha is from Studio Calico and accents

are from Paper Issues and my homemade enamel dot.

Abandon to God - Bible Journaling

Abandon is a word used quite extensively by Oswald Chambers

and I have already used it in a couple of places in my Bible 

and there will be more places to use the word Abandon.

Abandon - complete lack of inhibition or restraint.

Be carried away for God.

In Mark 14:6 Jesus points out that

Mary does a beautiful thing for Him and He loved it.

There were not many times in Jesus ministry that anyone 

impulsively showed Him their love and Jesus 

had to actually point this out because a couple of disciples

criticized Mary's impulsiveness.

How often had we been impulsive for God.

I used enamel paint and gesso for this page

as well as a foam heart, Martha Stewart punch and tiny alphas.

Handwritten Bible journaling

1 Corinthians 3:9

Labourers together with God.

In quoting or paraphrasing Oswald Chambers - God engineers everything:

wherever He puts you - your one great aim is to pour out a 

wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work -

no matter how menial the task or labor.

I have since changed my attitude about daily tasks - especially with housework

which I particularly do not like - and it does make

the tasks alot easier and the end result alot prettier.

So my very own handwriting - Gasp I know.

I decided to give it awhirl and I'm feeling

pretty good with it.

My handwriting really isn't that bad until I try

to do something on a page with it

and then like a clutch hitter-

I choke. 

In fact, the handwriting actually

 went better than the stamping did.

Sigh.

I used enamel paint and Panda Eight embellishment and a punched heart.

Poured out wine - Bible Journaling

and broken bread.......

Love this quote by Oswald Chambers and

he uses this phrase thoughout his devotional -
referring to Phillipians 2:17, 4:12,
2 Timothey 4:6 and Isaiah 40:26.
The common theme throughout these verses is that
by faith and through the Holy Spirit,
God is at work in our everyday lives and in the people around us
and that it is in the everyday things in life that we
realize the magnificent diety of the Jesus Christ.
In reading about the saints in days goneby, time after time they
lived their lives to the fullest in their faith and love for Jesus.
What a lovely example and guide for us to emulate.
(paraphrased quotes by O.C.)

I used mists and watercolors together
with some thickers and Studio Calico alphas.

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday!
Mine was sweet and lovely, hearing from both my boys.

Temptation and Bible Journaling

I don't know about you but I'm tempted everyday.

Alot.

There are times when I choose the temptation (eating that food,
not cleaning the house, or losing my temper)
 and there are times of resistance.

It was so reassuring when I came across an Oswald Chambers quote

"Kept by the power of God".

Oswald's devotion came from I Kings 2:28 when Joab gave in to

temptation a second time.

I liked his reference to I Corinthians 10:13

-He (God) will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

I used enamel paint with some Mister Huey ink,

Authentique, Thickers, and magic mesh - I'm not sure where

that's going but I liked it - however if you run it

through you xyron - baby power is required to negate the

adhesive that comes through the mesh.

Just sayin....

A mix of stamping and handwriting in my Bible Journaling

Another amazing quote from Oswald Chambers that

just cuts to the chase and says it all.

Isaiah 26:3

We all have imaginations - some better than others.
Mine has its moments for sure.
Its wonderful to know the source which was
an ah ha moment for me because it never occurred to me
that God would be imagination.

I used enamel paints - 3 shades yellow, orange, green and

tried mellowing them out. I really love how it

turned out and I used yellow to highlight the verse.

Transparent alphas were the perfect size to highlight imagination

and did you know that if you use glossy accents to glue

the transparency letters on - you can't see the glue behind it.

I stamped the first part and then I realized I was running out of room

and handwrote the rest of the quote in order to make it fit.

I've come to like how it turned out.

Studio Calico, thickers, technique tuesday.

Misting in my bible journaling

I went a bit easy since I wasn't sure how much it would saturate

and also since I have lousy aim - I wasn't sure how

far it would go on the page.

I'm impressed by my restraint actually.

Another Oswald Chambers quote to go with John 11:8 and
just loved it - especially the glad & reckless joy part.

Cut aparts from Shanna Noel, Ashley Horton and Panda 8.

Testing enamel paint in my journaling bible

And...meh...

I had two colors of Studio Calico Color Theory.

Yellow and blue and mixing them together

made a sort of green.

I seriously need to work on my smearing technique.

You'll notice two pages....well.....that was

a result of squirting out a little too much of the paint.

Did I mention they come in a tube.

I also threw in some grey because there really isn't enough going on.

I added some gesso to tone it down a bit and 

it didn't quite work out - it was so different in my head.

2 Cor 12:15

If I love you more, would you love me less.

And it appears I can't find the notes that drove me to this saying

for this verse. This refers to more of a parenting love.....

However, it can all be done to His Glory - so I shall not be

annoyed that I got this wrong.

There must be a message in here somewhere - because I

thought I was being careful with notes and everything so maybe.....
it was just something I needed to know.

First Bible Journal Entry

This is my first one - other than the cover and I quite 

like how it turned out. 

I used regular enamel paints and alpha stickers I had

in my stash. The banner tag is a design from Penguin Eight.

Head on over to Illustrated Faith  as they have an amazing site

for faith and journaling inspiration.

I chose this verse - well actually it chose me - I use an Oswald Chambers

devotional - My Utmost for His Highest that a dear

friend gifted me. On that

day the verse was Hebrews 11:8. I just love what it said and 

felt compelled to  not only highlight it in the margin

as well as the verse.

The version of the devotional I have was written in the early

19th century so there is an English language

issue that I either look up in the dictionary or on line where

they have a contemporary version that helps with the translation.

I also have a different Bible translation that comes in

handy as well.

I have to admit it was really hard to get started - because its the Bible after all.

But once that first dab of paint hit, it opened up the creativity and

it became easy to highlight and pray over.

Taking my devotions to the next level

If you have not yet found Shanna Noel at Illustrated Faith.com, you need

to check it out. I found her by following Amy Tangerine

another talented scrapper, both on many design teams.

Shanna and her team takes devotions and Bible studies 

to a whole new level in using their  "journaling Bible".

I had no idea journaling Bibles even existed - I just wrote in the

itty bitty margins hesitantly or an everyday spiral bound notebook.

Not a whole lot of creative juice going on there.

Although if you guys think about it - you know from previous posts

that I have issues ripping out pages from an 

out of date dictionary so to actually do something in a Bible

wouldn't even cross my mind.

Until now.

Please check out the illustrated faith blog because they can explain

it way better than I can since I have only progressed

to the point of getting the cover done.

So I purchased the NIV journaling Bible - it also comes in ESV version

however, I have mostly used NIV so I stuck with that.

The difference is there are lines in NIV for journaling and on in ESV.

I ordered it from Amazon and danced around for weeks

waiting for it to arrive.

Once I had it clutched in my grubby little mitts,

and after days of waiting for the inspiration and guts to start, last night

 I daintily began to spread some gesso on the front cover.

My thoughts were to keep the cover minimal

so that it wouldn't get too torn and trashed.

I also had the mindset that if I really screwed it up with the paints

 I could cover it up with paper. 

Plan A and Plan B.

 I then spread some watercolors on and after letting it sit overnight

decided that they were a bit bold.

 I became braver and added some white enamel paint to mute

the colors and decided that doing the entire front

looked better than just a colorful blob

in the middle of page.

 As you may have noticed in the past I have trouble stopping,

so adopting a somewhat cautious mindset

I decided to stop here because I can still see the

polka dots, which I like, and the colors seemed somewhat less wild.

 I broke out my Technique Tuesday stamps - that I had forever

and they had a goofy unused quality to them.

In fact, my "g" fell apart. Sigh.

I went with stamps because as you know, my handwriting caves

under pressure - and the pressure would be unbearable.

Although if you peek at the top I did feel brave enough to actually

write the verse there.

I will be using them a bit more - love the fonts I have on hand. However,

when I purchased them years ago I was in my

eecummings phase - where I wasn't using capital letters.

I did find one set that thankfully was all caps because 

I didn't feel right using a lower case "g" for God. 

I kept the cover simple because I'm brave that way.

I picked this verse because I loved singing it in church for the Offertory and 

it just seems right for the start of devotions.

As I progress, which is being even more brave, as I actually 

pu my thoughts creatively on the inside pages.