Faithbooking - Prayer Journal

It has been a long time since I have found time to do another prayer journal page. This one has been on my heart to do for a while now.

My sons do not always care for the things God has entrusted them with as they should; however, often I do not either. These bedroom photos do not exemplify what the rest of our house looks like, but I tend to get exasperated and cannot fight anymore and allow their space to be their space. Of course, I have my certain areas of the house, such as my desk and bills, my van that needs vacuuming, and other areas, so I am no better than them.

I want to utilize my prayer opportunity to study my Bible more about stewardship and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod offers Eight Biblical Stewardship Principals for me to review, along with a leaders guide and Bible verses that can be downloaded. As I study these, I thought I might blog a short bit about each one.

The first principle is: God's stewards are God's stewards.
Sounds like a twist, huh? Basically, this reminds us that we (as God's stewards) belong to God because he created us and because we are renewed daily as a new creation through Baptism. This reminds us that God created everything, even us.

We do not own anything that surrounds us, not even ourselves. Everything belongs to God.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

If you would like to follow along with me, read more applicable Bible verses in the download, as well as more points to take to heart.

I wonder how often I fail to give God the credit for the things I own. I know my hubby gets upset with me when I say "my bedroom" instead of "our bedroom" in conversation. In all actuality, it is neither of ours, but "God's bedroom," but that does not come out right in normal conversation.

Of course, one way to recognize and give credit that which is God's is to thank Him for what He has given us. How often do I complain about aspects of my body or things that I own? If I only would change my perspective and look at these things as that which God created for me and entrusted to me, especially for me, maybe I would not complain so much.

It makes me think about hair. I complain that my hair is flat with no body and often want other's hair type. However, those with lots of body and/or curls complain that their hair is unmanagable and want hair like mine. We often never want what we have, but what others have.

I remember a little prayer by song that I like to sing.

God is so good, God is so good;
God is so good, He's so good to me.

He cares for me...
I'll do His will...
He loves me so...
He answers prayer...

Here the song over at Youtube.







I used freebies made by Tina and Claudette and you can find the links here. I plan on making some contributions with this color palette when I have time, but their contributions are awesome!

I used Chris Greiser template from her Sketch Me If You Can blog. I converted it to rectangle and did move a few of her elements around, but I loved using this template and thank her too. The template I used was a layered template (in her sidebar, choose 3 photo templates to find it) and I would love for her to share more of her sketches in this manner.

New Faithbooking Site

I am so excited to be able to share with you a new site, a week or so old, for Christian scrappers to encourage and inspire each other to create fathbooking layouts.

It is called Faith Sisters. There are challenges, a gallery, and a forum already quickly filling with resources. I found on a thread meaningful songs and was immediately inspired to scrap my all time favorite photo of my boys. It appears to be an open community; that is, no worries of what products you utilize on the pages you share or the resources you share.

Credits: Fonts (Kim Geswein: You are Loved & Sue Ellen Francis); Background (Jeri Ingalls Northwoods Beargrass Summer Kit; Frame (O.N. Designs Poloroid Frames

The journaling on the left side is personal and from my heart while the rest of the text is from the lyrics.


Come along with me on another sentimental-sappy mom-moment.




Find Your Wings
by Mark Harris

It's only for a moment
that you are mine to hold

The plans that heaven has for you
will all too soon unfold

So many different prayers I'll pray
for all that you might do

But most of all I'll want to know
you're walking in the truth

And if I've never told you
I want you to know that
as I watch you grow

I pray that God would fill your heart with dreams
and that faith gives you the courage
to dare to do great things

I'm here for you whatever this life brings
so let my love give you roots
and help you find your wings

May passion be the wind that leads
you through your days
and may convictions keep you strong
guide you on your way

May there be many moments
that make your life so sweet

Oh, but more than memories
I pray that God would fill your heart with dreams
and that faith gives you the courage
to dare to do great things

I'm here for you whatever this life brings
so let my love give you roots
and help you find your wings

It's not living if you don't reach for the sky
I'll have tears as you take off
But I'll cheer you as you fly

I pray that God would fill your heart with dreams
and that faith gives you the courage
to dare to do great things

I'm here for you whatever this life brings
so let my love give you roots
and help you find your wings

Faithbooking Sites

I have been enjoying my new venture into faithbooking. What is faithbooking? It is a spin on scrapbooking. It can be as simple as sharing your faith in your journaling and by Bible verses in the layouts you already create, to making a whole scrapbook about your faith.

I do try to include my faith in my regular layouts. However, I also have three separate books going now. I have chosen not to print out these separate books, but to keep them in the electronic form just to pass down to generations to come and to share on the web with folks.

I have my Garden Book which includes faith analogies in nature.

I have a prayer journal book.

Also, I have a separate book in which the themes of my layouts are specifically about my faith in theme (hymn, church, etc.)

There is plenty of inspiration on the internet to inspire layouts that would fall into my last book. I have been completing these challenges.

Here are some other sites I found.

Faithfully Yours This is a site I think I will visit again for inspiration. There is also a forum and a gallery, as well as an ezine.

Bella Online - Wonderful challenges to inspire your pages.

Creative Memories on Faithbooking - Many resources and ideas.

Scrapbookers Bubble Bath Faithbooking Inspiration - A great blog full of inspiration!

ImageEvent - A gallery with some layouts to inspire you.

Walking with Wisdom - a site about faithbooking.

All Things Scrapbooking - a few articles on faithbooking.

Digitals challenge - some inspiration for pages.

Faithbooking Blog- associated with a shop.

If you faithbook, please share your layouts in a comment.

Faithbooking - Strength

I hope that by my sharing my faithbooking it is inspiring others to do the same. If you do any faithbooking, please share with me. I would like to see your layouts.

I saw this book by Joyce Meyer last night and it just spoke to me and I had to get it. I never thought of my need to have approval as an addiction. I have always thought of it as just low self-esteem. I do always want to please everyone, but often cannot even please myself.

I am anxious to read the book, but hope that time will allow. I always have good intentions on reading, but then fail.

I also recalled how I used to enjoy Joyce's television program. I set it up to tivo and I hope it works tomorrow. It comes on at 5:30 a.m.! Joyce Meyer has a church in St. Louis County, but travels to make presentations everywhere. She has a wonderful magazine too. You can find it on her website, as well as listen to her online.

Tina had a great challenge on her blog that went right along with the book, so I decided to do another faithbooking layout. Her challenge was to make a page about my strength. My first thought was that my strength comes from God. Then I found this wonderful Bible verse in Joyce's book and was able to babble and expand on the topic. Journaling is always rewarding as I tend to learn more about myself as I write.

Everything on this page is with Tina's "A Walk" kit.

Journaling

God has given me a strong personality that is a challenge to keep tame. God has gifted me with strong convictions which are sometimes a blessing and sometimes a pain. God has gifted me with a strong immune system that keeps me healthy. God has given me a strong will.

On the other hand, God has put on my shoulders a weak self-esteem. I am
always looking for approval from others. I always want to please everyone. I am never good enough for my own expectations.

These opposite traits often clash. On the outside I appear strong and on the inside I am very weak.

I must remember that God directs my steps and my life, not me. God is what makes me strong when I am weak.

People often do not like my strong personality, which only in turn makes me weak again inside. I must remember that God has a purpose for making me the way I am. I must let Him direct my ways to meet His purposes.

Greatest Act of Love Ever Known

I am blessed to have an employer who considers Good Friday a holiday day to allow us to attend services. I enjoyed our Good Friday worship today.

I decided to take some photos and blog about several of the things in today's worship and words that touched me.

Good Friday is a "blessedly horrible day." Oh, the irony in that, but it is so true! It is a horrible day as we remember how our Lord bled for us, was mocked for us, was spit at for us, was scourged for us, and was pierced for our transgressions. However, it is a blessed day for us because He did these things for us so that we may have forgiveness of sins and life forever in heaven.

I was reminded today of the curtain that was torn when Christ said "It is finished." The curtain was in the most holy place where only the high priest could come -- and only once a year --and only with an offering. The curtain came between us and God. However, the curtain was torn and life everlasting was unveiled when the curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom--all the way from heaven to the dead places of the earth.





I was reminded that the ladies with Jesus upon his death were anguishing with sadness and a feeling of no hope. Sometimes our lives feel that way. However, the last words of Hymn #159 which we sang say "Savior, teach us to rise." No matter how down and out we are, our Savior can teach us to rise.

We also sang a song "Were You There" which reminds me that, yes, I was there that day in Jesus' heart as what He did that day was for me, even though I was not born yet.

Lyrics: Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? Were you there when God raised him from the tomb? It causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

I did this layout for the Faithbooking Challenge which challenged me to take photos of my church and make a layout of them. I used a kit by ShelleyRae. The kits in this collection are freestyle and I had to go through her gallery to get inspiration as these elements are out of my box.

When I look at our sanctuary, I see the three places where God comes to us, the font (baptism), the table (communion) and the pulpit (God's Word). I encourage you to make a layout of your sanctuary. If you do, please share with me.

Prayer Journal

I decided it was time to start a new prayer for my sons. I am now going to pray for them to have ambition. Here is my layout, I hope you can read the journaling which is my prayer for them. If not, click on it to go to the Fotki folder.

It is hard to do a layout with no photos! I used Amanda Rockwell's Back in Black Fun kit. I also used her coloring technique which she shared on the Designer Technique a few posts below this one. This kit has a great piece of cardboard in it!

To do the title, well, I'm not sure how I did that! I used Laribie's "Earwig Factory" font. It is a font on fun blocks. I selected the text, reversed the selection, the used the paint bucket to fill a new layer in black. Next, I used a feather of 100 px and made a rectangle selection around my text, reversed the selection, then hit the delete key to delete all but the rectangle of text.

Next, I played with blending modes, changed the lightness and darkness of the layer, and played some more until I came up with this. Have fun playing!

Please share with me if you do a prayer journal layout.