Matters of the Heart

Good Thursday all my crafty friends! I hope your week has been going well and you are making plans for a fabulous weekend! I am still playing catch up and I hope after today, I will be right as rain!!

Today, I want to share a journal page that I have done as part of my weekly Take Me Deeper Challenge over on His Kingdom Come.  I am also doing this as a part of Sunday Sentiments over on Inky Dinky Doodle blogspot! The month of January's theme for Take Me Deeper is "Transformation" and Week 2's Bible verse is from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." There is SO much in these verses but the first thing that jumped out to me regarding these verses is that this is the very depiction of the servant of Christ!

One of the main revelations as a believer is that the flesh is weak and susceptible of being ensnared by the enemies tactics of "boasting or taking pride ownership of the very things God reveals to us! We can do NOTHING outside the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, lest He reveal it to us! Paul's story here shows us that even after a revelation, Paul is allowed to suffer what he calls "thorns in the flesh" that he many KNOW the power of the "blood of Christ!" Therefore, the fruit of our trials or "thorns in the flesh" should produce the fruit of humility, obedience and exaltation as we give glory to God!
You can't give glory to God unless you have been transformed and you can't be transformed unless your heart is laid bare and broken before Him, ready to do His perfect will with the mind of Christ, the ultimate Servant! Transformation is a matter of the heart! As we transform from glory to glory His grace, in the midst of those trials or thorns, is sufficient because it is in "that place," our very weakness, that His power is made perfect allowing you to rise above ANYTHING that would try to exalt itself against Him!! Satan's tactics are old and ALWAYS the same with one purpose in mind - to hinder you from the work of the Lord! Our God is greater! God will use the thorns to keep us humble and the focus on Jesus!! 

I want to continually be in a place where my hearts desire is to do what pleases Him! Here I am Lord!

This journal page used ALL kinds of goodness that came to me as Christmas gifts this past year! I have been chomping at the bit to have some of Finnabair's new products, so because of the love of dear family members, I was able to do that for myself this past Christmas! Yay me! LOL

I started this page by putting some of Fin's Texture Past in Copper Crackle through Tim Holtz's Harlequin Layering Stencil and as I am too impatient, I heat set it. My understanding is the crackle will be MORE evident if you let it dry naturally. I then sprayed Lindy's Stamp Gang Starbust Sprays first in Tibetan Poppy Teal and then in Autumn Maple Crimson! Those colors are the ULTIMATE yumminess to me! I love Lindy's sprays! I sprayed a matte fixative over at this point because I knew I would be putting things on top. I then drew my girl figure on book page and adhered with Aleene's and then pulled out those yummy Gelatos and painted her with Peach and Butterscotch.

I couldn't wait to get my hands on Finnabair's Art Ingredients products and so I mixed her Glass Glitter in Gold Rush with Liquitex Gloss Gel Medium and added to the bottom surrounding her. I guess I was trying to go for an "ethereal" look, but I really liked it! It's so hard to see how beautiful that product is through my terrible photography, but trust me it is! I had some left over so I skirted it around the page a little as well.  I then placed some of her Glass Beads in Plum around here and there just for some extra texture. I wanted her skirt to pop out and played around with several things but just ended up using this yarn that I had that I love and then took some pieces of lace that I had left over from some Christmas project and added to her waste. Lastly was the "heart" and the message that were both colored with the Lindy's in Autumn Maple Crimson, shaded with Faber Castell Big Brush Pen in Magenta and then outlined with a Faber Castell black pen.  I also added Distress Vintage Photo to the edges for a little extra shading. I really liked the finished product!

God's desire is that you would be a child after His own heart! Seek Him today that you could be changed from glory to glory!

Be blessed!