Advent Week 4

This week we move into the last week of Advent culminating on Christmas Day with the birth of Jesus Christ. Yesterday we posted our last Advent devotion and playlist on our church site gracetoledo.org.

Today I am posting the devotion I wrote for the Advent devotion project at His Kingdom Come. Each day a different author has written a devotion based on an Advent or Christmas song.

Worship Video: Born That We May Have Life by Chris Tomlin 

No reputation, no stately bearing 
No palace bed for royalty 
But a star in the Heavens, a sign full of wonder 
Announcing the coming of the King of kings 

Rejoice, o world, your Savior has come 
Through the love of a virgin's womb 
Son of God, Son of man, born that we may have life 
You were born that we may have life 

A throne in a manger, the cross in a cradle 
The hidden revealing this glorious plan 
Of a Child who would suffer, a Child who would conquer 
The sin of every woman, the sin of every man 

Rejoice, o world, your Savior has come 
Through the love of a virgin's womb 
Son of God, son of man, born that we may have life 
You were born that we may have life 

Rejoice, o world, rejoice 
Rejoice, o world, 
Hallelujah, the Savior has come 
Rejoice, o world, join with the angels 
Rejoice, o world, rejoice 

Rejoice, o world, for the King of kings 
And the Lord of lords 
Rejoice, o world, a Savior is born 
Who brings us life and brings peace 

Born that we may have life 
You were born that we may have life 
You were born that we may have life 

For centuries before Jesus’ birth, the Israelites were expecting the Messiah to come as a strong, mighty, conquering King; a King who would rescue them from slavery and oppression and who would crush their enemies. But the King of kings came not as they had expected but, as this song says, with “No reputation, no stately bearing, no palace bed for royalty”. Jesus came into our world in a humble manner, as a baby born in a manger. Yet in this baby lay the hope of the world. 

The Magi saw this when they followed the star to the manger. When they saw the child they “bowed down and worshiped him”. (Matthew 2:11) 

The shepherds saw this when they were led to the manger by an angel of the Lord who declared to them, “In the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11) 

Simeon saw this when the baby Jesus was taken to the temple in Jerusalem by his parents to be presented to the Lord. Simeon had been waiting for the “consolation of Israel” as promised by the Holy Spirit. He saw this promise fulfilled in that temple. Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms “and praised God, saying: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2:25-32) 

A prophetess named Anna saw this when she too saw the baby Jesus in the temple, calling him the “redemption of Jerusalem”. (Luke 2:38) 

All recognized this humble baby boy as the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Savior of the world! In this baby was God, humbling Himself to dwell with man. In this baby was the glory of the Lord! 

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) 

In this baby we have life! 

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (John 1:4) 
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.” (John 6:40) 
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) 
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;” (John 11:25) 
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) 
“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) 

Rejoice, o world, your Savior has come 

Through the love of a virgin's womb 

Son of God, Son of man, born that we may have life 

You were born that we may have life!

Here are a few more Advent Rolodex art cards:

Advent Rolodex Art Cards Catch-up

I have fallen behind in the past week on posting my daily Advent Rolodex art cards and the other Advent projects I am participating in.

Here is the art I made for yesterday's Advent devotion I wrote for the His Kingdom Come community. You can read the devotion here if you'd like.

At our church we use some of the pre-made background slides that come with our presentation software for the song lyric projection on Sunday mornings. There is a slide that is a concrete block wall with the blocks forming a cross done in a contrasting color. That slide was the inspiration for this art page.

I am also working on an Advent project for my church website. A new devotion with a playlist for this week (week 3) and daily Advent Scripture readings can be found here.

It is a busy time of year with Christmas celebrations at school and getting ready for family celebrations. It's good to have Advent devotions and readings to help slow down the season some and focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas - the birth of Christ the Lord!

I hope you are finding ways to slow down and participate in Advent this year. :)

Change and Advent Day 9

For the past year I have been a part of the foundation team for the His Kingdom Come faith art community. Helping to start this community has been a great experience and I have gained many wonderful friends all over the world. I discovered through coordinating the weekly devotional studies for the Take Me Deeper group that I really enjoy writing. However, in the past few months my job responsibilities in  my full time ministry job have changed and require more creative energy. One thing that I have found to be true of myself over the past few years is that, while I totally love being creative, it requires energy. Energy that I can't dig down and manufacture when I get overly tired and stressed out. So I have had to make the hard decision to step back from a few things in order to maintain that creative energy and keep myself from burnout. As you can imagine keeping up the weekly devotions and other duties I have for HKC, along with trying to maintain my own blog and Etsy shop, along with a full time job in ministry that generally will go far beyond a standard work week, has been difficult to juggle. My new responsibilities at my job will require creativity and writing as I take on keeping our church website and blog up-to-date. I have made the hard decision to step down from the HKC foundation team in order to be able to devote more time and energy on my own blog and shop and on the church blog and website. 

In all honesty, I went into the HKC foundation team with some hesitation. Only because I know from past experience that when a hobby becomes work it can be difficult to continue to enjoy the hobby. I managed a cross-stitch and quilt shop for 8 years and when I left that job to go into ministry I stopped both of those hobbies and never picked them up again. I enjoy art journaling and mixed media art too much to let this happen again. They have become more than hobbies to me and finding art journaling when I did was used by God as a tool for healing when I was dealing with issues of burnout. So it seems that spending one year helping the HKC community get started has been a good thing without it becoming something I don't want it to become. 

Today I sent off the last week of Advent devotions for the community and that ends my official responsibilities with HKC for 2015. Change is always bittersweet. There is sadness in leaving something you have put so much time and energy into. There is some melancholy in having relationships that have been daily and weekly experiences change. But there is also excitement and anticipation over the new adventures and opportunities that lay ahead. 

I have selected my word for the year for 2016 as is my tradition over the past few years. This year my word was RENEW as I felt there were areas in my life that needed renewal and restoration. In many ways that has taken place in 2015 and I will write more about that in the weeks ahead. Over the past few years as I have become more connected with the realities of being an introvert, I have partaken in activities of silence and solitude before the Lord. These are activities and practices I want to spend more time in next year. At first I thought that solitude would be my word next year, but after more thought and prayer, it seems that the word REST encompasses so much more of what I am after. And it includes solitude. I don't mean rest as in needing sleep or a break from activity. I am looking at REST more in terms of Sabbath rest, spiritual rest, being still and resting in the Lord. Again, I'll explore that more and write about it in the weeks and months ahead. 

Needless-to-say, my decision to step down from the HKC foundation team is tied up in this also. Next year I have a few art groups I will be participating in and exploring more areas of art and I will stay a participant in the HKC community. But I intend to slow things down as much is possible and explore what it means to REST - body, mind and soul. I will remain open, as always, to going after whatever opportunities that God places on my path. Life is a journey and I am enjoying the process!

My Advent Rolodex art card for day 9:

Today's Advent devotion for the HKC community can be found here

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30 Day Blogging Challenge day 21.

Advent Day 1

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. The theme this week is hope. At His Kingdom Come you will find the first of our daily Advent devotions. If you are looking for Advent resources check out this post for a list  I put together for our church website.

My art journal page for today's HKC devotion:

"And it will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

Isaiah 25:9

My Rolodex art journal card for Advent day 1:

30 Day Blogging Challenge day 15.

Advent Season

Tomorrow begins the Advent season and our journey toward Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus - Savior, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel...

I'm participating in a number of ways this year:

1. In the His Kingdom Come community there will be a daily Take Me Deeper Advent devotion. For the past year we have had a weekly devotion which our members have used as a prompt for making art in the medium of their choice. One does not need to make art to participate and so we will be posting the devotions on the home page so anyone can participate without having to sign up to become a member - though it is free to join! I will be posting a link to the devotion each day from my blog as well. I have been very busy this past month writing devotions, editing and coordinating our schedule of devotion writers, and getting everything in place for this Advent project. I think you will enjoy the variety of talented authors and artists!
2. I am also coordinating a weekly devotion with my friend Jean for our church site. Each Sunday during Advent we will post a devotional, an Advent playlist and Scripture readings that lead us through the Advent story. We began today with an introduction and an Advent resource guide.
3. To keep things simple this year I am using cards from my Rolodex art journal and intend to fill the "A" slot with an Advent art card per day. With the busyness of my schedule these past few weeks and again in the weeks ahead I needed something quick and easy. I can make a card or two per day since they are only 3 x 5. My Advent divider card is here:
   
   
   
   
    

How will you participate in Advent this year?

There are a few hours left for Small Business Saturday and a sale in my Etsy shop runs through Midnight tonight.

30 Day Blogging Challenge day 14.

Advent 2015

The past two weeks have been very busy for me with outreach events for my job and preparing for the upcoming TMD Advent project for the His Kingdom Come community. I have been busy prepping, writing and editing devotions for a daily blog post and challenge beginning on November 29. We will be featuring the Advent devotions on the HKC blog so people can participate whether they are TMD members or not. I will also be linking to the Advent posts daily from my blog.

I am going to continue to use the Advent journal I made a few years ago for this year's Advent pages. I only make a handful of Advent art pages each year so there's room in this journal to cover multiple years.

Here are a few sneak peeks of the art that will accompany the Advent devotions I wrote.

We have a variety of people from the HKC community writing the devotions. Each day's devotion is based on a song of the season or on Scripture that the song is based on with a piece of the author's art accompanying it.

In my busyness I got off-track on the 30 Day Blogging Challenge, but I determined to finish it and will continue on now that I have slowed down some.

30 Day Blogging Challenge day 11.

His Kingdom Come Birthday Blog Hop

Welcome to a very exciting blog hop. This week His Kingdom Come is celebrating its first birthday. Can you believe that we only launched our community on November 1st 2014 and we have grown to over 2000 members. This week we have a special blog hop and event to celebrate. Keep reading!

Thank you, everyone of you, for making this journey with us. We had no idea what we were taking on when God called us to build a new Christian creative online community. And it is totally thanks to Him that we are where we are today.

 If you have been with us the whole time then thank you for your support. It has been most appreciated by the Foundation Team. If you have joined us during the last few months then you are very welcome. To find out about our history visit the His Kingdom Come website where you can read our story.

The Foundation Team are already planning new classes and new products for 2016 and we hope you will continue to belong to the His Kingdom Come community.

To celebrate our first birthday each day this week the Foundation Team is blogging about their experience of HKC and showing some of their faithart.

Each blog has the complete list of participants so if you miss a day you can go back and read our blogs.
Monday 26th   Diane Marra
Tuesday 27th   Shonna Bucaroff
Wednesday 28th   Merri Dennis
Thursday 29th   Mary Brack
Friday 30th   Bernice Hopper
Saturday 31st   His Kingdom Come

As you visit each blog please leave a comment. Each of us will choose one person at random to win a prize. Please leave your comments by noon PST (8pm GMT) on Tuesday 3rd November.

 This past year has been a lot of fun as we have built up the HKC community. I have enjoyed the new friendships I have made with the foundation team members and the members in our community. HKC is so blessed to have so many wonderful artists and creatives! I'm continually blown away by the art and the expressions of faith made by the members of our community. In the past year I have grown as an artist, gone deeper in my walk with the Lord, and have discovered a knack for writing devotions that I didn't know I had.It's been a good year! It has been such an honor and a blessing for me that this community has become a place of encouragement, support and friendship for so many people. Thank you all for being a part of this!

 A few of my art projects for HKC

And there’s more! 
To celebrate our birthday on Sunday November 1st we are offering you a discount of 25% off these classes: Faithart 101 5 class bundle, Faithart 102 God’s Aviary class, The Zigzag Postcard Book and the Altered Books: The Promised Land 3 class bundle. These will be discounted on the shop site so you do not need a code at the checkout.
You will be given a full refund if you buy one of these classes on Sunday 1st November and then win the class from your comment on a blog.  

You can also receive 10% off any faithart products you buy from the HKC shop by using this code: bday2015.
You will be given a full refund if you buy one of the products on Sunday 1st November which you then win from your comment on a blog.

These discounts apply between 12.01am PST and midnight PST on Sunday 1st November. (Sunday 8.01am GMT to 8am Monday)

Prize winners will be announced on the His Kingdom Come Blog on Wednesday 4th November.

Prizes to be won by leaving comments on the Foundation Team members’ blogs:
Diane Marra A God’s Aviary Dove stencil & a set of Doves stamps
Shonna Bucaroff Faithart 102 God’s Aviary class
Merri Dennis Faithart 101 5 class bundle
Mary Brack A God’s Aviary Eagle stencil & a set of Wings stamps
Bernice Hopper Altered Books: The Promised Land 3 class bundle
His Kingdom Come A set of Promised Land stamps & a set of Sparrows stamps

Don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a prize!

Monday Meandering 9.21.15

This month's theme for the HKC Take Me Deeper devotions is the promises of God. I had made background pages in advance last month when I was playing with my new 4" round Gelli plate. Doing them all at once created a theme.

September Week 1

September Week 2

September Week 3

Last week, after reading about breathing exercises in The Creative Call, I determined to start taking photo walks in nature. I took two last week and found them to be both relaxing and stimulating. I saw so many types of birds. I wrote about breathing exercises and the birds I saw in my last post. Today I took another photo walk at the park along the river. Today I spotted a Green Heron for the first time. He was in no hurry to go anywhere and didn't seem to mind my getting close to him. The Green Heron is so much smaller than the Blue Heron's I typically see. He was only about 14 inches when he extended his neck.

I only saw water birds today: Blue Heron, Egret, Sandpiper, and female Mallards with their pretty blue stripes. I purchased a Moleskine watercolor notebook to begin keeping notes and pictures from my photo walks. Any excuse to start another journal! I'm even trying some watercolor in this one.!

I hope you have a good week and are able to make time to breathe. :)

Hello Creative Spark! (And a giveaway winner)

September always makes me think of fall - even though we are in the middle of a heat wave here! But the fall bug has started for me! I read a quote the other day that really struck me:

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing.Wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.There really is no such thing as bad weather,only different kinds of good weather."  ~John Ruskin

That really does sum things up well for me - maybe with the exception of hot, humid weather! I really do like all of the seasons and all types of weather, but I would have to say that autumn is my favorite followed closely be spring. I'm pushing the season a bit with this little package I ordered from Citron Faire shop on Etsy. Aren't they cute!

For the past few months I just haven't had a lot of creative energy. I've made art and done quite a bit of art journaling but I just haven't felt the creative juice I'm used to. I've started painting papers many times only to give up, unhappy with the results. But over the past few days that creative spark has returned. It really started with a little Bible study I stumbled on by accident. I was studying chapter 9 in the gospel of John for the study team I am on at my church. This is the chapter where Jesus heals the blind man and one of the places in the book where he says, "I am the light of the world." I got rabbit-trailed in my study by looking into the Old Testament, and especially Isaiah, at the Messianic references to light and how restoring sight would be a sign of the messiah. This rabbit-trail of light and sight made me want to make a journal to record my findings creatively, So I made a stitched pamphlet with water color paper and started painting some papers. In between all the other things that needed to get done over this holiday weekend I have been covering pages in this journal with painted papers. And I have felt that creative spark ignite! I can make art without the spark, but, wow, do I really feel more connected to it creatively when that spark exists! I just don't like doing things on auto-pilot, whether it's art or Bible study, and it's easy to get into ruts and do just that. My Light and Sight journal pages are filling up with background papers and then I'll start adding what I gleaned from my study.

Our Take Me Deeper theme for faithart devotional studies in September is about God's promises. My first page of the month:

Now for the winner of the bird themed vintage paper pack from my Etsy shop: Shawna Rash! If you like birds join our newest class from the His Kingdom Come foundation team, God's Aviary. Thank you to everyone who participated! Shawna, send me your mailing address: marybrack@gmail.com.

Congratulations Shawna!