He Told Me to Pray - Inspiration

And, here I am up writing again.  Just love the peace in the early morning hours.  Sun not up yet and it appears that no one else is awake in the building.  The last couple of days have been too busy to get this all down both with Bible Journaling and with my husband since it was the weekend.  I find myself sharing more and more about God's strength through so many health issues.  I guess maybe that is why they are happening.  He did show me several years back that a major reason why so much happens in my life is because I will run to Him.  I know where to go.  Where someone else doesn’t.  Others who don’t know Him have no clue who to run to.  We hear many people who know Him contemplating why many who don’t, don’t have as many problems.  Yet life is not about all of these things.  Life is meant to Glorify God and prepare us for a heavenly eternity with Him, not to have an awesome play time on earth!  Yet, prayer is where it’s at.  A relationship with Jesus is where it’s at!  And He is so much better than anything on this earth!

  

Encaustic Mixed Media Art - "My Momma's Home with digital artwork.

 I am also still working on the second part of the Bible Journaling that goes along with this blog post.  I am doing more of my own art now, or adding to their art also.  I just keep seeing it in my mind’s eye and I have this “fearlessness” bubbling up within me.  I have to do more.  It is what is fulfilling me right now.  Yet prior to Saturday morning the inspiration in my heart was at a rare low and I felt numb and unsettled.

To share more of what God has been showing me about my physical issues right now.  (By the way, this morning my hands are feeling relatively good so that I am able to type, which is the way my life seems to go.) When my limitations keep me from something it is usually because I am not supposed to do it.  I had already made a decision to not drive up to an outlet mall on Saturday morning and so very thankful that I did.  I awoke in the most pain that I think I have ever had when not in bed with a morphine pump.    After only three hours of sleep and my hands were curled half way into a fist.  I could barely straighten them or do much more than to sit in my dining room chair and push buttons with my thumb and/or holler to our Echo, “Alexa play Christian Rock Music”.  This song was playing in my mind,  Oh My Soul by Casting Crowns again.  It is the song that played on our Echo the night of that first day when my hands started to fail on my iPad keyboard and I truly had a meltdown.  Please see past posts relating to this.  Since I have purchased it and listened to it many times.  The echo played it again.

  

So profound and I don’t think that if God were audibly speaking to me that it would be any more recognizeable to me as Him.  Not long after I ran into this Bible Journaling video on 1 Samuel 1:15 and He continued to speak and I have been pouring my heart out to Him since and awesomely inspired to my Bible Journaling.

1 Samuel 1:15 Bible Journaling video Inspiration  Done by Monica on her channel Because Jesus Bible Journaling which I love and keep watching previous videos.

And I have done some Bible Journaling of my own.

My Holman NKJV Single Column Journaling Bible.

My Inspire Praise Journaling Bible.

I saw both of these in my mind's eye.  This is how I receive my art inspiration most of the time. The fingernails are done like my own.  Of course not great yet but practice helps.  What was really awesome is when I awoke from a dream where I saw an art piece and ran out to my desk to write it down so I wouldn't forget.  My step-son was spending the night at the time.  He awoke to tell me exactly what I saw before I wrote it down.  Just too cool!

ay 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 “Up-tweet” 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!

I'm Inspired - God's Peace

I’m inspired!  God is so good!  I’m not awake even 5 minutes before He is touching my heart!  I’m sharing this today because I need to let you all know how He makes a way when I woke up not feeling well.  It was 5:30 or so the first time I woke up with an awful stomach ache.  I just tried to sleep some more knowing that I was getting up at 7:30.

John 14:27  " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." is my favorite scripture.  It talks about peace in the midst.  He doesn’t promise everything to be perfect and a bed of roses but He does say that He will give us peace and be with us through it all.  My life is such a perfect example of this.  From prison to sickness, to more sickness and even more sickness, and spending much, much time alone with only Him to keep me company. 

When I finally got up today I had a Bible Journaling page lying in my dining room table morning spot to finish that evoked so many memories.

And I shared that it evoked many memories in my Bible Journaling group and then I couldn’t hold back.  And I shared:

“Oh, I can’t help it...I’m a story teller I guess.  Not only did it make me think of growing up on a bike but also the last place we lived was called Christian Retreat in Bradenton.  I had a Purple trike (color of page) and I would ride in the early mornings in this circle by all these duplexes.  You can feel the presence of God in this place when you turn from the main road.  I would pray for the people as I rode past each home with all the gorgeous flowers and the sound of peacocks...I think of all the amazing memories from living in this awe-inspiring place!  I could go on and on...God is awesome!  It was like the $$ just fell from the sky to move there, too.  Totally God!  I may have to hang this in our computer room.”

Not long after all of this I was drawn to the flowers on our dining table.  I have been getting them several times a month for more than a year now and they are worth so much more to me than what I pay for them.  I delight in them.  In Ohio we had a ½ acre of gardens, a water garden, and I had 120 house plants.  (No exaggeration.)  But since I have been in Florida there has been a decline in my ability to care for plants and I have truly missed the flowers the most.  I look at them on and off all day long.  They inspire me.  They touch my heart.  They evoke memories, They are God’s glorious creation.  I don’t even know how to arrange them well but I decided that it really doesn’t matter if I just bask in them anyway!  They are just an amazing gift to my day, my life!  And I am writing this with my stomach still hurting but emotionally and spiritually I am free, complete, at peace, and full of love and sunshine!

I used to not like the color yellow until we moved to our Ohio house.  We had a screened back porch with skylights and yellow walls where the sun shined, the birds sang, and the squirrels played.  I collected metal sun plaques for the wall.  We moved before I could do all of the decorating that I wanted to there.

 Since then, yellow has brought the idea of light to me and I love using it that way in my art and Bible journaling, too.

Bible Journaling page with yellow as light.

When we went for flowers at Trader Joe’s in St. Petersburg on Saturday this was tour first truly sunshiny day in a couple of weeks being the rainy season in Florida.  The first flowers I noticed were the Gerber Daisies and  I snatched up a cluster of them, then the spray roses (a favorite of mine).  We are so blessed to have such beautiful flowers available to us as such a good price.  And then I had to add the purple, of course.  Whoever purchases the flowers for Trader Joe’s knows what they are doing.  I’d rather go there than any place else in the area.  Oh, I’ve gotten bouquets in other places that were lovely occasionally but Trader Joe’s is the most consistent and inexpensive.

Can you see God’s handiwork here?

 

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 “Up-tweet” 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!