BEYOND to BETTER THINGS: August 2017

Monday, August 28, 2017

Bible Journaling PLUS Retrospect MY BIBLE

This morning I was thinking about how precious my Bible has been to me. The first one that I put to very good use is like the saying

“A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.― Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I remember sitting on my bed in prison, Bible in my arms. I was being moved to a different, lower security prison and I had to put all of my belongs into a paper bag. My Bible was the last to go and it was so hard. We had very few possessions in there yet my Bible, my most prized possession.

Then, I was looking over my Journaling Bible and thinking of how I love to embellish things. My favorite things are those that I have “improved Upon” in my own way, which I am very much doing with my Journaling Bible. It makes it special, uniquely mine! No one else has one like mine! It is now very special to me, similarly to this Bible in prison where I learned to know the Lord so intimately. Now, I am into a different season. I am learning, growing & healing once again!

At this time I am working on a cover design of my own.

God never ceases to amaze me. He makes my life worth living. He makes my life more interesting!

AND with this, I'd like to thank some people by sharing links to their websites and/or pages who have been so very inspirational to me in my Bible Journaling/Art! Please check them out further!

And, as always...worshiping!

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Be Good to One Another

This scripture just keeps coming to mind:

*Hebrews 13:2 "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels."

This is a very thought provoking video:

I am still on 'Cloud 9' and thanking the Lord for this day and it really wasn't that far from being a normal day, BUT, to explain...

I got up this morning feeling better physically than I have for a long, long time. I had energy. I even took a muscle relaxer before bed and normally I would be sleeping on the dining room table but I wasn't. It was early, the 6 am that I'd been shooting for to start getting up at and I was awake. No coffee before my longer trip to the Physical Therapist but I was still awake. Hallelujah! For the last 16 years, I do not remember a whole lot of these days.

I went to the Physical Therapist and was able to say that I had very little pain. Another major HALLELUJAH for me since my life has been more painful this year than in many others.

(Although, I once again, learned something during our Sunday morning church service. I'd seen it before BUT as most of us know, we need to keep reading the Bible over and over BECAUSE it is God's Living Word!

*1 Corinthians 9:22 "to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

I believe that God showed me several years ago that He let so much illness happen in my life because I know where to run. I know to go to Him and very often I've found that peace that passes understanding. I've found freedom from much pain. I've found my "hiding place" in Him! And, He is empowering me to share all of this with others! I have been in a long learning process and it is not always easy, yet tolerable with Him!)

There is an even longer explanation for how this art piece of mine came about but I will share it due to it being appropriate right now. I hope you are able to read my inspired poem.:

Back to my story. Even though I had to drive into St. Pete to go to therapy, I found out it was on 4th Street and all I had to do was to hear that and I knew that Trader Joe's was on 4th Street. This is one of my favorite places to go due to all of their gorgeous yet inexpensive flowers among other things.

PT was over and I headed for Trader Joe's. I have to ride in an electric cart due to so many floors feeling so hard due to the metal in my back. It took me several years of arriving at the check out in tears to give in to using them. Now I know that I must sit and wait if one is not available.

Now, you tell me why I experience so much more kindness in some of the stores in Florida than ever before in my life? I have actually felt downcast in one of those electric carts. 'Am I in it because I'm so fat?' and other thoughts ran through my mind.

This day I stopped for a sample of the Cold Brew coffee and Almond Milk. Yummy! As I was drinking it I conversed with the worker in the corner who was extremely pleasant. I picked out gorgeous and inexpensive flowers. along with salads, plums, etc... and headed for the check out. This gorgeous and appealing man checked me out and was so very sweet. As I left the store and headed for my car, I felt tears well up. I had no idea that I needed that kindness so much that I was in tears. Then a gentleman came up to me and asked if he could put my cart back and tried to help with my grocery bag. If he was a worker there, he had no tag on. He was also very pleasant and conversed with me a bit.

That was my inspiration for writing this post today. We don't know what people are going through and I am as guilty as the next person for running through life and not paying attention to the needs of others. Even a smile instead of a look of disgust can make or break a person's day. In this world anymore we seem to be moving so fast in our lives and getting so cynical. Me, too! Yet, how can we make this world a better place? Can't we learn to love as Jesus did/does? So many of us thinking, "why me?"...but in the full scope of things can't we all see that there are others out there having an even worse day? Won't it make our days better if we learn to smile at one another? I have the ALL POWERFUL CREATOR GOD, living within me so why can't I show it?

And, I drove home listening to my worship music and thinking that I have heaven to look forward to BUT...

*Revelation 20:10 "The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

And, I came home to this most appropriate song:

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Bible Journaling - Is it for you?

A friend just told me that “the Lord is most certainly moving in your heart to spread the good news!” And I replied “My life...been doing this for some time. God is awesome and I want everyone to know it! Rooftops!”

I just don’t know how to stop? I love encouraging people!

I have just recently been noticing how much more patiently I am waiting in doctor’s offices than I used to. This, to me, is amazing. I was so happy when I got an iPhone because it is the first one that I’ve learned to play on and it helped me to be patient waiting in places. Yet I still did face some issues with impatience at times. Today, a timer went off at the chiropractors office to signal the return of the technician and I just closed my eyes again, relaxing. That is new for me! Ah, God is working! He is always working on me! I am forever being blessed by Him. And, I believe that this new found patience can actually be attributed to my newer found practice of Bible Journaling and the hours that it temps me away to spend with Jesus.

Do you need a good stress reliever? Do you just want to find out more about it? Then check out Tracie Rollins at BibleJournalingMinistries.com

https://www.biblejournalingministries.com/bible-journaling-classes/ You can just investigate! Is this for you? Do you know someone who might benefit from this? And, if you are on Facebook you can find a whole community of Bible Journaling people in the Bible Journaling for Beginners group.

I have my Journaling Bible that I do more extensive Journaling in. Then I have my “Inspire Psalms” book that I do basically coloring in (for when I don’t have the time or space for a mess). See examples below:

Inspire Psalms Book

Inside Inspire Psalms colored by me

My Journaling Bible embellished by me

My Journaling Bible embellished by me.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

In Retrospect - OH How He BLESSES Me SO

I just had to shout since I was feeling so very blessed this morning and nearly every morning, too. And don’t think that I have always been in a nice apartment in a partially gated community. NO WAY!

I was just sharing with my hubby about one of my first places. It was on East Kibby Street in Lima, Ohio. I think I was 20 years old so it would’ve been 1980. I think we paid $105. per month. This was 2 rooms plus a bathroom with no yard at all. It sat about a foot from the sidewalk. There was a small living room and a bedroom/kitchen combined. The bathroom was a toilet and sink (no shower or tub). We sat on the drain board of the sink (one of those old white porcelain ones) and used the sprayer to take a bath. My mom found me another place to live after my live-in boyfriend (Keith) beat me up and went to jail.

I remembered waiting to move with my boxes open under the fluorescent light the lined the ceiling to keep the cock roaches from getting into them. I had nightmares due to the rats scratching in the walls (someone saw one outside their entrance and it was the size of a cat).

There is more to share about this time in my life. This part of my life in my memories are nightmares that I truly would not even want to think about if Jesus had not set me free from such bondage as my old memories so that the sting is now gone. Hallelujah!

This first part I must share due to the psychological/emotional significance that Jesus later showed me. Keith was drunk and I may have been too or at least high on some other substance to include possibly even inhalants. He started beating on me and we ended up in the bathroom with me behind the toilet (in this little space that I could never fit in now). He was kicking me in the head with his steel-toed boots. When I got free I ran about 2 blocks away, found a phone, and called the police. The police took him away even though I stupidly did not want him to leave me alone in that place at the time.

I was asked if there were any witnesses when he went to court. I asked the upstairs neighbors who had been home at the time and they told me that they did not want to get involved. This is when I decided that I wasn’t worth it. I was in the midst of a life of ruin and this just added to it. Even though I’d grown up in church and was saved in 1973 (yet no one told me where to go from there), I was a total people pleaser. I was an acceptance addict besides being addicted to any intoxicant I could get my hands on. I let these neighbors, these sad drunken neighbors, tell me that I was not worth it (in their own words). And, I did not leave Keith for 2 more years of brutal beatings and absolute nightmares.

This is just one example of the kind of memories that Jesus healed me from. To be honest, as a person with a heart, they do still make me shutter but I’d think they would make anyone shutter.

In these 37 years, Jesus has brought me a long, long way. I lived another 8 years in similar squalor before I finally fell, giving Jesus my life.

I hope to get another book finished and published that will be called “A Mosaic of Me”. I intend on always sharing more about the goodness of God and how He delivered me from years upon years of messes. If you or someone you know can be helped by this, please leave a comment below. I have started this book 2-3 times and need to get back to it and finish it. Comments will encourage me to do so. Please follow my blog, too. If you’d rather follow by e-mail there is a place for that, also. Please see my links below. God bless you and may you find even more peace than I have through Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior!

This is the blog background and just a few of my artwork pieces! If you like them, please check out my links below! Thanks much!

Monday, August 7, 2017

It is a RELATIONSHIP

I had a bad night, one of my worst. I researched it, it was a Trapezius Muscle Spasm. This was the 2nd and lasted for 6 grueling hours. I had used tiger balm on my neck prior to bed. I slept about an hour before it started so I tossed and turned and prayed and prayed. Finally I could stand no more so I got up about 3 hours after it started to research it on the internet. I found to put ice on it and go back to bed. I finally got back to sleep yet I awoke soaking wet, the bed soaking wet, my pillow soaking wet…what now? Joe was sound asleep and needed to work later today so I just let him sleep (hoping he wouldn’t roll over on the wet). I pulled my pillow off and got up. It was now about 8:45 and I needed to let Cardiac Rehab know that I wouldn’t be making it. Not on 2 hours of sleep!

YET, I got up and was surprisingly wide awake??? I was talking to the Lord – praying as I do most mornings! I did not feel like going back to bed and after another hour or so I actually decided that I didn’t need to and got some coffee.

Bible Journaling kept coming to mind. The previous Sunday I believe that God showed me through a song in church that I was supposed to do a search in the Bible on Strength and Trust using my “His Strength” Journal (now with pink touches!

and my Journaling Bible. This kept coming to mind, plus the color pink. As I went on sharing with a friend in Facebook Messenger in the quiet of the morning more things came to mind and I realized that God was wanting to teach me more about Female Strength as I also had more pictures to use come to mind. I was feeling wonderful! Pain Free! High on the Magnificent, Comforting Presence of the Holy Spirit. His Peace filled our dining room as I poured through all of my Bible Journaling supplies for the pink things that I needed…as He spoke to me…

This is one of the main reasons that a relationship with Him is important! Not every thing we think is right, is. I thought I had to go to Cardiac Rehab this morning BUT He had a different plan!