His Eye is on the Sparrow!

Good Thursday morning to you all!  I pray your week has gone well and you are looking forward to a wonderful holiday weekend where we all deserve a break from labor!!  At least I do! LOL!!  For all you who labor, may you labor well and as unto the Lord!  

Today I want to share a page from one of my journals that came together swiftly for me because once again, I had a stirring in my belly as to what I wanted to do and it just came right out on the page.  Unfortunately, as I have noted before, I don't have wonderful camera and video equipment to show you all the great color and such, but hopefully you can have a well enough look from my phone pic today!

I started as I mostly do with gesso on my page to get some smooth bold color from my acrylic paints and then added some scrap pieces of book page I had lying around along with some drywall tape, which I love, to give some background texture.  I don't use fancy acrylics, just good old Folk Art acrylics that I can get from my local Walmart.  They have so many colors to choose from and I really like using them.  I took my old credit card and just began to lay down a myriad of colors.  You always get a happy mish mash of color when you do that, plus it's fun! I then put some liquitex molding paste through Tim Holtz's Burlap stencil in various spots and then for further texture, I stamped with one of my favorite background stamps from Christy Tomlinson.  I also took some Liquitex black ink and watered it down and ran my old card through it and just randomly put it in spots on the page and then took a toilet paper roll and and old bottle cap and also ran it through the ink and did the same thing (real high-tech, huh?) LOL.

I keep scraps of everything, I think I am a borderline hoarder - ha ha, so I had some old packing paper, which I really like and stamped my sentiment on it using Tim Holtz's Worn Text cling stamps  , which happen to be my favorite, and then stamped my wonderful birds that I got from Unity Stamps and Fiskars. I adhered and sealed that all down with Mod Podge and then did some shading on the sentiment with a Faber-Castell Big Brush Pen in black.  I outlined the birds with my favorite pen from Koh-I-Noor, the Rapido Sketch Pen.   I love that pen.  If you treat it right, it will go over EVERYTHING!  I added a little outline with my Sakura white gel pen and to top it all off I watered down some gesso and the Liquitex ink and splattered it on.

My thoughts for this page were out of my heart for those who seem to not have a "home" or who are down trodden or wondering in this world.  Dorothy had it right when she said, "There is no place like home!" There IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME, especially when you are talking about "home" in the arms of our Heavenly Father!  This world is NOT our home!  We are merely sojourners or aliens here (1 Peter 2:11-12).  As God's children, our "real" home is in the heavenly realm!  If people really understood the magnitude of that, they wouldn't put so much stock in earthly pleasures and things, which are temporary at best!  In Psalm 84, which is where I got my inspiration from, the Psalmist was "homesick" for Heaven!  He wants to be in the dwelling place of God where there is unutterable glory at the altar of the Lord!  Glory!  My heart yearns along with him!

There were two altars in the tabernacle and the temple.  One was the brazen altar, which typified Christ's death and the other was the golden altar, which typified His resurrection.  Together, they represent the FINISHED work on the cross!  No longer do you have to feel "homeless" or remain wondering in a fallen world because you have direct access to the throne room of our Heavenly Father for ETERNITY through the blood of Jesus Christ!  God shares in His Word that even the birds of the air do not sow or reap or store away in barns yet our Heavenly Father feeds them and He goes on to note, aren't we much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26) He takes care of the birds of the fields even the lone ones like the sparrow.  If He will do that for them, then He will most assuredly do so for those whom He considers, the apple of His eye, His created ones, His children!

Today, if you feel alone or homeless in the wilderness, you can find rest and security  at the altars of the Lord!

Be blessed!