My Quilt’s Journey

I hand sew. I have tried to use a machine but to me, it lacks flavor, meaning, passion. I want to place each stich carefully where I want it to go. I want it customized and full of love and meaning. Every inch of fabric and thread, I want to touch and be a part of positioning and stitching exactly where it should be. And that meaningful intention produces a quilt with a purpose, a journey to its home, a story, a love thing. I make quilts and any of my art with the exact same passion and drive I live my life. I want it to be purposeful, time consuming on purpose, tell a story, be a visual representation of what God made. I want to exude love, scream out that this was on purpose. I took my time and valued it. That, my friend, is exquisitely beautiful. 

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The Joy of Worship

Worship is not an experience at church, it is a daily, no hourly acknowledgement that God is great and we are small, that He is worthy of honor and respect and we are less worthy. This humbleness of spirit is very difficult for so many people. It is simple, a bowing of the knee of the created in the constant presence of the Creator. It is very difficult for so many because our culture and backwards media glorifies the ego, elevates self, does not acknowledge the Creator, boosts our pride. Our pride does not help us because it is most people’s greatest struggle/weakness. It takes great strength to dismiss our own greatness and power as subservient to a God who is infinitely greater. It takes great faith to yield control and power to God and acknowledge He is and knows best. Once that difficult task has been mastered, that bending or even yielding of will, worship is left. “May God’s will be done. Everything is His and for Him, including me.”This is the attitude, the goal and focus of worship. It is continuous and permanent. It is a lifestyle. Everything else branches off it. It is the core and strengthens everything else. Worship, this humbling us and acknowledging God, is extremely powerful! And it has benefits: peace, joy, richness of life, proper perspective, fruits of the Spirit coming easily, beauty of soul. It is worth every effort you make !

The Talk of Fools

I used to talk way too much. Some say I still do, others that I should say more. I would argue that I talk very little, considering how much goes on in my head and I write way more than I talk. And the more challenges I go through, the more I write and the less I talk. But the talk of fools (I do not consider myself one most of the time but of course we all suffer from foolishness sometimes) is simultaneously comical and sad. It entails speaking at length and adamantly about that which you know little of. Besides the obvious political targets, I include in this category those who have judgmental and hypocritical attitides. And the judgmental and hypocritical ones are everywhere, inside and outside the church and politics and schools and media and everywhere. They seem ubiquitous. And often those who accuse others of judging or being a hypocrite are the most guilty themselves.  So, I thank these fine foolish talkers for their comic relief but I also ache and am sad for the danger of leading people astray. God says He really hates that. So please try to do the research and know of which you speak before you do speak. Thank you ahead of time. 🙂

Goodbye to Facebook

I have been on Facebook for years, sometimes actively and sometimes scarcely. Now, I am deleting my accounts. The reason is private but I will tell you that part of it is a focus on family time and part of it is our security. Twitter is fairly safe so I will conti n ue on Twitter. However, more and more eyes and hackers are on Facebook than ever before and this world is less and less interested in the morality. So to be on the safe side and have fewer distractions for my kids and family and bands, I am deleting my Facebook account and focusing on family. All may contact me on my cell or on Twitter and I will continue my blog here, but Facebook will no longer be part of the mix. I hope you all understand. I will miss the encouragement and pictures and laughs most and definitely the interaction with those I love as well as that tolerate me. Keep my n umber and call or text anytime. I love you all dearly. May God bless you and your families!! 🙂 ❤ 

Tech versus Think

Too much technology is literally mind numbing. We as a society have opted to be entertained and minds manipulated rather than think for ourselves in our free time. People are staring at screens rather than studying or speaking with each other. People can relate more to a fantasy than reality. Then they are surprised when people take this narcissistic, fantastic behavior to a new level and harm another person. It is a trend. No one looks around, knows their neighbors, goes to church, helps out a friend on moving day, etc. They are “busy” entertaining themselves. Unless it serves them, they won’t serve. And this mind shattering illness is rampant. I find lately that I want to run away to a tech-free zone and communicate with someone, play music, sing around a fire, roast marshmallows, play board games, paint, paint, paint. I want to know my neighbors and help them paint their fence. I want to have coffee on all the time for those who happen to stop by. I want to look people in the eyes and find out what makes them want to breathe. I want to live with the compassion and passion about life that I feel. I do not want to be entertained, but I want to learn and create and express with another soul. I do not want tech to think for me, I want to think for myself. I do not want media to bend me, I want to be worth reporting on. I want to thrive, not simply live. I want to be at peace and joy with God and not get lost in the cares of the day. I want to make life something to be felt and experienced and not inputted onto a screen. I want rolls and smells and not airbrushed sterile 2-D Pics and movies. I want real, I want bad notes, blemishes, dirt, imperfection, facial expressions. I am tired of touched up, fake, enhanced, perfected, synchronized. I am tired of staring at lit up boxes. I want to create sculptures and art and piano pieces that make people feel something. I want people to feel something, care about something, think something is special. Anything. I want people to think.

A Worship Forest of Praise Trees

Sometimes the worship forest is not seen through the praise trees. Seems a weird concept, but stay with me. We praise God. Yay! We should. He is so worthy! He is incredible, so much we can not even fathom it. However, we often can miss the fullness of a lifestyle of worship to God by thinking all that is involved is bunches of praise. It is far more than that. Why? How can this be? Praising God is one aspect of putting Him first in life and walking worthy of His generous gifts and blessings to us- from life itself to an amazing view of nature to someone smiling or holding the door for us. Living worthy of that goes well beyond praising the Praiseworthy One but also obeying Him. Ouch. Really? Yep. We have to not just stay high on the mountain of praise and meander down to the valleys to serve the unserved and love the unloved to show them what they do not see of our Savior through their own misfortunes. Worship involves all that as well as the praise. The forest of worship is a higher calling than tending the trees of praise. Yes, the trees are vital but not everything. We must take what we know of God and our Savior Jesus Christ to a world that needs to see that truth through their own distractions. We must be God to them. That is worship and I aspire to a lift of worship and not just of praise. If we all adopted that desire and acted on it, the world would be changed yet again.