Vacation

I'm taking my mom on a vacation to Michigan's Upper Peninsula... looking forward to cooler weather, beautiful  scenery and relaxation. My travel journal is all ready to go so I can still get art time in on the trip. I have become so obsessed with making mini albums, art journals and altered books. The process really feeds my creative side and restores my energy. Restoring energy is so important to our mental, emotional and spiritual health. I continually come back to seeing this as one of the most important discoveries on my self-discovery journey. Off we go!

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in." ~Robert Orben

Becoming Me: Traveling Companions

It's been quite a while since I last posted here. I have been far too busy and the excessive heat has zapped my energy. I have managed to maintain some art journaling in sporadic bits and pieces of time over the past month. I've been working in my altered book art journal about my journey of self-discovery. We all have traveling companions on our journey in life. My companions on this particular leg of the journey have mainly been my husband, Bob, and my pastor/mentor/friend, Tim. The companionship of these two men in my life has been of great value to me and both have played a significant role in helping me become who I am today and who I continue to grow into.
I have also had a group of traveling companions who have been intimately involved in this journey of self-discovery but whom I have never actually met in person: Robert, Adam, Terry, Peter and David. Here, I have a picture of them:

Along with Jesus and Paul,

these authors through these books are helping me become the real me. The me God created me to be. I'm enjoying the journey. I'm becoming comfortable being the real me.





The above books and authors are:
Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland
Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner
Draw Close to the Fire by Terry Wardle

Beginning

The first chapter of Inner Excavate is titled "I Begin". Using this as the prompt for my first few pages, I begin the journey of recording my journey of intentional self-discovery through art journaling and photography.

The little envelope holds a page of journaling about beginning.

David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

This is going to be good. Pulling together the pieces and threads of my journey. It's an opportunity to reflect on where I've been and where I am now. To take a closer look at what I've discovered about myself and about God along the way.

Be Who You Are & Inner Excavate-Along

My friend Rox and I have decided to do an art journaling summer project together. We are taking an e-course with author Liz Lamoreux called Inner Excavate-Along based on her book of the same title. The book is about exploring yourself through poetry, photography and mixed media {that's straight from the sub-title!}. All the class participants are reading through the book, doing the journaling prompts, photo walks, word toolbox poems and other exercises in the book. We started on Monday and the class runs for the next 7 weeks. A great way to play this summer!

So, since I have been on this intentional journey of becoming me and exploring how God has created me, I thought I would use this e-course and art journal to record all that I have discovered over the past few years.

Rox and I are altering old books for our art journals. Here is my book:

I haven't had any inspiration for the cover yet. But I did get my intro pages done.

There are more pictures on my Flickr link. Liz and the class can be found at lizlamoreux.com.

Be Who You Are ~ 3

We all are on a life long journey of discovering who we are. Over the past few years I've made it an intentional journey because in knowing who I am and how I am put together I become healthier. Healthier mentally, emotionally, relationally  and, most importantly, spiritually. I function better as I get to know who I really am. I serve God and others more effectively when I have a deeper understanding of who I am.

"There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God." John Calvin

On this journey I have some companions whose writing have helped me in this self-discovery. I'm in the process of re-reading these books:

• Invitation to a Journey by Robert Mulholland
• Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
• Draw Close to the Fire by Terry Wardle

And a new book I'm reading is The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery by David Benner. What I am loving about this book is that it is confirming what I've been studying in Scripture over the past few months. Over the past few months, while I have still been on the journey of discovering how I am put together, I've been on more of a big picture, theological level in my discovery. I've been studying the Gospel of John and looking at how Jesus' identity flowed out of his relationship to the Father. This thread runs through the whole gospel. This is our call as Christ-followers as well. That our identity will flow out of our relationship with Christ and with the Father. So the "big picture" I've been looking at is that we must embrace our calling as God's people first, becoming who He has created us to be and called us to be, only then will we truly know who we are. For years it seems the Church has had things backwards. We promoted finding out what your spiritual gifts are and your passions and then looking for a place to serve based on that knowledge. Rather, my own experience found that in heeding God's call on His church and on His people and being obedient to serving anywhere in order to be a part of His mission and calling, opened up a better understanding of my unique and individual calling. As I get closer to the end of Benner's book that same message is becoming clearer.

"Genuine self-knowledge begins by looking at God and noticing how God is looking at us. Grounding our knowing of our self in God's knowing of us anchors us in reality. It also anchors us in God." David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

"The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming...It is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God. In finding God we find our truest and deepest self.\It is by losing our self in God that we discover our true identity." David Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself

Good stuff!

It strikes me as I write this that things are coming together for me on this journey. Each year I pray about and choose a word that will be my word of focus for the year. For two years 2010 & 2011) it ended up being the same word: freedom. This year it is the word "through". It is in what I have written about above, deep knowing of God and deep knowing of self, that I experience true freedom. In fact, Benner writes about operating out of our false self is actually "forging the chains of bondage". It is "through" Christ and knowing who I am in Him that I experience true freedom. Freedom in Christ!
My theme verse from 2010 & 2011 fits so well here.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
2 Corinthians 5:17-18.

I know I'm stretching the context of this verse, but to me, an aspect of our "unveiled faces" is knowing who we are in Christ and who we are becoming and operating out of that.