*Psalm 37:4-5 “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”
These verses have always been a couple of my favorites just trusting that if the rest of God’s Word is true that these must be true, also. These verses helped give me a hope for the future first in knowing that He created me so He must know my heart and if I gave my desires to Him that He would cause them to happen. So He must’ve known how I would desire to live close to the water (Florida to be exact) for nearly my entire life.
When I married my husband (1990), he told me that he’d never live in Florida. So, I thought that I was giving up a dream but I loved him so much that I didn’t much care and I wholeheartedly knew that God’s design was in our marriage.
Here we are living in Florida for more than five years now. Not long after we moved here I was thinking about the fact that my husband had told me that he’d never live here and I was directed by the Holy Spirit back to these verses. And, one of the most miraculous things is that my husband brought me here to live.
Our marriage has been one of many trials and hardships. I’ve been through a couple of truly debilitating trials. The first one to be a ten hour spine surgery to repair the eventual impingement on my spinal cord caused by a fall off of a roof when I was twenty years old when I crushed a vertebra. The second of which I suffered from CNS Vasculitis and spent more than two years in bed but was healed of in 2007 (check out my blog entry of the testimony for Billy Burke Ministries). God has given me my dream. And, given us a much simpler life where the world may have disabled me but I believe that God has enabled me. We are happier than we've ever been at nearly 20 years of marriage, now. I prayed for years and years to become closer to Him and now I am free to spend hours upon hours every week, alone with Him in prayer, meditation, and His amazing, awesome inspiration in my writing and art - in this gorgeous land with water all around us. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” I’m excited to see what more He has for me. What an awesome God I serve!
I guess today’s writing is really more of a journal to me than a writing for someone else to read. I actually read the definition of a journal last night (““a record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use.” Excerpt from “A Heart Ablaze”” by John Bevere) and saw that most of my writings, although I’ve felt like they were journalling, were prayers to God (mostly just talking to God). Then I write about things for my blog that many other people merely journal. I’m just certain that there would be so much better reading out there if many of those people that journalled daily would share those ideas, experiences, and reflections with others. I believe the only reason why I actually started to share mine is out of obedience. I believe God showed me that there were others out there that needed to read them. When I got my first real comment (when my blog was at Christianblogspots.com) from a stranger, I bawled like a baby. And, I realized that just that one made all the writing worthwhile.
I fully realized this with writing my book, too. I’ve made a total of $3.85 in royalties, although I purchased almost 2 dozen and sold most of them myself. I made very little but the comments I’ve gotten from those who purchased them were worth much more to me than any monetary value! So, I’m working on writing a second book that is a culmination of short non-fiction writings by me and will be called “A Mosaic of Me”. I’m also working on the cover design. I don’t know how it’ll do, but that’s not actually my reason for writing it. Coming back once again to the scriptures that I believe wholeheartedly encompass the Christian life, Proverbs 3:5, 6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”
With that I want to share more of how God spoke to me recently. I attended a class at my church last night based on a book and workbook “A Heart Ablaze” by John Bevere. First of all, every time I prayed or even mentioned this class in my head to God, I’d hear this still small voice say “you prayed for fire.” over and over and over again, this last month or so that the pastor has been advertising this class in church. As if He was saying ‘was there ever any doubt?’ or ‘why ask?”. So, I knew this class was for me. It’s twelve weeks of Wednesday night classes with extra reading and homework that I am overjoyed to commit to. Part of our homework assignment for next week is “Take the time to write your own personal mission statement for A Heart Ablaze.” (From “A Heart Ablaze” by John Bevere). As I drove home, I thought and thought about this mission statement while listening to a CD in my car. The song came on “You Won’t Relent” by Misty Edwards. I heard the words:
“Come be a the fire inside of me Come be the flame upon my heart Come be a the fire inside of me Until You and I are one [x4]”
Then, I went to bed last night and that song played in my head all night long while I dreamed over and over again how I was uniquely made for what He was having me do in my life. I believe He is calling me to not only being a writer but also a speaker. Right now with my still nominal disabilities it can be hard for me to see at times, but no matter what He keeps bringing that back to my heart and in last night’s dream He once again showed me how I was uniquely made for this position.
This song “You Won’t Relent” touches me deeply into my soul. And, I had my mission statement.
If you like this song, you might look back in my archives or comment to me if you can’t find at least one other writing about how God used it to speak to me.
I’m here writing this today because I used some images that are notunlawful but now I’m realizing that even though this has no legal ramifications, it’s still considered unethical. The whole thing feels rather stupid as in a whole I would be making less than $50 - $60. I don’t want anyone pointing a finger and wondering. That’s not the image I’m wanting to project. I believe I have integrity at this time in my life, and I didn’t for a whole lot of years when I was much younger. And that’s sure worth more to me than that $50-$60! I think I’ve actually learned something in the time it’s taken to sort out this whole mess that I thought I might pass on to the somewhat artsy readers of this blog. I’m certain in this day and age that putting our artwork out there in the public eye creates some amount of risk that we need to be prepared for, if only in our hearts. I realized that I need to look further into copyright protecting my work (http://www.ehow.com/how_2063860_copyright-artwork.html).
I also realized that I’m sure the unethical does exist. I was immediately willing to rid myself and my shop of anything unethical but I’m sure there are others that are not this willing.
To explain further; what happened was that I used to do quite a bit of decoupage. I had come up with the idea for decoupaged coasters because my son brought me a pile of 4”X4” tile that were thrown out at his work and I already had the rest of the materials to make them. I’ve used magazine images for years upon years in decoupage. The first being an old $2.75 end table that I got at an auction. While I was in bed (or recliner) I cut out a pile of magazine photos, mostly to keep myself busy. So, I used these on that table and put it in my bathroom. When we decided to move to Florida I sold it in a garage sale. (photo in upper right corner) After that I went on to sell a couple more on E-Bay, along with making a few pieces with also mosaic tops.
During this time, I became quite concerned about using these images so my husband and I combed through copyright law and found that these pieces would only come under scrutiny if they were derivative work – “de•riv•a•tive (from http://www.dictionary.com/)
–adjective
1. derived.
2. not original; secondary.
–noun
3. something derived.
4. Also called derived form. Grammar . a form that has undergone derivation from another, as atomic from atom.
5. Chemistry . a substance or compound obtained from, or regarded as derived from, another substance or compound.
6. Also called differential quotient; especially British , differential coefficient. Mathematics . the limit of the ratio of the increment of a function to the increment of a variable in it, as the latter tends to 0; the instantaneous change of one quantity with respect to another, as velocity, which is the instantaneous change of distance with respect to time. Compare first derivative, second derivative.
7. a financial contract whose value derives from the value of underlying stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, etc.
So, I breathed a sigh of relief and never thought about it again while continuing to use these images and adding to them when I saw something I liked in magazines here and there over the years. When I used them I covered most of the images up with the following image, never thinking much of the whole process. I like texture so most images I’ve only used to portray color and texture, even covering them with baubles, mosaic tile, rub-ons, stickers and similar items.
Yesterday someone saw an image on a coaster (a partial image) that they recognized and called me on it. I sited the copyright law (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf) where we had found the information previously. This went into a heated discussion to where I ended up deleting the conversation. I knew that I was at least in the wrong in arguing, period, no matter what the situation was. That IS NOT sharing God’s love with people, what I consider to be a major part of my life’s mission.
I searched and searched, with the help of another Facebook friend for more information on this subject of copyright infringement. I prayed for wisdom. I was truly dumbfounded as I had no intentions of stealing anyone else’s artwork and had now been called a thief! I was distraught and could think of nothing else! I went on to a restless night in bed while this song kept going through my head. Every time I awoke it was there.
I shared with my husband about the song going through my head and that I thought that God was telling me that I needed to stand up for what was right, even if it wasn’t illegal. And, when I got on the computer, I went through all of my coasters for sale in my Etsy.com shop, looking for magazine artwork and removed each of them. This will not happen again from me!
Added later in 2010
I thought this was finished but last night that song played in my head all night. It's a nice song and of course, I like the lyrics but it's definitely not my style of music to listen to every night all night. I realized that I must not be finished with this yet. When I got out of bed, I came to the place at the kitchen table where I spend alone time with the Lord nearly every morning before my husband gets up. I opened my Bible (and this is something that I rarely do) to scriptures that fit this writing to a tee. Matthew 6:33 "But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." and Matthew 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." and there are so many other scriptures that would fit with this whole scenario.
This is the way the Lord speaks to me many, many times and I guess it's because I've grown to have some discernment. I will hear that small voice or a song repeat over and over and over again until I am obedient.
For those of you who do not wish to watch or listen to the video above, here are the lyrics:
Let the Church Rise
Artist: Jonathan Stockstill
Album: Anthems of Praise
We are alive, filled with Your glorious light
Out of the dark into Your marvelous light
We are waiting with expectation
Spirit, raise us up with You
Let the church rise from the ashes
Let the church fall to her knees
Let us be light in the darkness
Let the church rise, let the church rise
Moving with power, bringing Your name to the earth
Singing Your praises, lifting up glorious songs
We are moving with His compassion
Spirit, raise us up with You
Let Your wind blow, let Your wind blow, let Your wind blow, revive us again Lord
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