His Mercies are New Every Morning!

Hello friends!  I do hope you are all well on this cold January day!  

For Christmas I was given a Journaling Bible.  This was something I have struggled with for some time.  I mean, I have my beloved Bible with all sorts of notes written in the margins, and yet somehow the idea of doing artwork to illustrate a passage just scared me.  I first and foremost did not want to have it be about the art.  It needs to remain about God's Word!  However, as I've been home bound for the most part lately, this has been a wonderful way for me to read His Word and then focus on a certain verse or passage that spoke to me at that moment.  I am completely new to this, so I have much to learn but I'm enjoying the process thus far.

The main image above is a stamp, and part of the Jan. release from ODBD, and is called Your Mercies.  The bottom of the stamped image  is just above my hand lettered "Therefore I have Hope" with the pink ribbon.  I was reading this chapter and that phrase popped out at me several times.  I in a special way connected with the words of Hope this time!

God's people had rebelled and sinned,  and God had allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem.  There was much suffering and lament in the land.  However,  in this 3rd chapter and following, the laments turn to reminders and comfort that (3:21) "This I call to mind, therefore I have hope. "(v22) "The Lord's Loving kindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. "( v23) "They are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness." 

The author then goes on to say "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, Therefore I have hope in Him.  The Lord is good to those who wait for Him.  To the person who seeks Him.  (vs 24-25)  

So in a time of deep suffering, still it was recognized that God is abounding in loving kindness.  It does not please Him to see His people suffer. (However there are times He does allow it for reasons He alone can know... but certainly in part to bring people back to Him through repentance, to be a witness to others of His power and glory, and many more reasons I'm sure).   Because of this knowledge of God's character, came a strong hope and even eventually repentance.  The 21st verse of the 5th chapter says "Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be restored; Renew our days as of old."  Once you have come to know God's favor, you really don't ever want to live far from Him again!  

My image was stamped with Memento and colored with Prisma Pencils.  I had some shadowing from the ink but almost none from the pencil coloring.  I used a  .01 Micron pen to hand letter the "Therefore I have Hope" and the ribbon and there is some shadowing of that as well. I used Distress Inks to sponge the clouds using a Rosies' Road Show cloud template.  I have plans for the other side of this page so I brought the clouds all the way over and will eventually journal the right hand side bar.  I do not really like when heavy artwork is done over the words in a journaling Bible.  I feel like that's crossing the line in some way.  However there are many mediums like the distress inks that lightly sponged on can be read clearly through.  The pencils as well can be read through.  My goal for most of my pages will to either keep most everything to the side bar, or use only light mediums that do not obscure the words.  

I will say that this is the third page I did this week.  I still have things to show or finish and show, but I did want to share this with you for now.  Tomorrow is another Big chemo day for me so I might be out of it this coming week for a while.  Again... thank you all so much for your prayers, cards, messages on facebook, etc.  They mean so much to me!!!

Blessings,