Persevere!

"A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'

Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'

Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'

The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'

'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'

Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'" ~ Luke 14:16-24.

 

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Just as Stephanie says, I am only showing you what I'm doing to inspire and encourage you to document your faith. Do it as your heart leads you to do. I've had three join with me in a Documented Faith group. Pray to get nine altogether. We're in the process of exchanging photos of each other, getting addresses, emails and  prayer requests.
 

I found it very helpful last year to make up  document templates on Microsoft Word such as this prayer list to print out. If you don't have a computer, you can just use a piece of lined notebook paper folded in half lengthwise and opened back up with room to write dates, prayer requests and dated answers. I find it helpful for me to have prayer requests in one place and so encouraging to see God working in people's lives when getting an answer to that prayer. It's amazing to me how much I've learned to rely on having a physical faith-book available (I keep it on the end table next to my chair), so when I temporarily misplaced it the other day, I was in panic mode! grin! Guess where I found it? It was under a blanket on a recliner chair in the living room!  *whew!*

 

Microsoft Word Table -- 4 columns, 36 rows equally spaced.

 



Learning Styles: There are three basic learning styles -- visual, hands-on (kinesthetic) and audio. I'm a combination of visual and hands-on with audio being my weakest (music is my white noise) and I suspect Stephanie is a hands-on type of person too when she likes having the hard-copy presence of her Documented Faith journal in her nail-polished hands! grin!

My husband's parents were overjoyed to find that nobody was scheduled to work this last weekend, so we all made our annual holiday trek to the country for our Christmas get-together. There were twenty-two of us plus a dog and a cat. I'm grateful our guardian angel on our car hood (traveling mercies)  kept us safe as we traveled there and back. I took my faith-notebook to work on after our gift-giving time, while everyone else either watched sporting events on television or played games.

My 2016 Faith-book cover. I used black and white checked, striped, and dotted paper for the front and back covers & a strip of check for the side. The flowers are stickers and are only on the front. I have me a perennial  flower garden!

 

I finished adding decorative washi tape to each outside edge of the pages in my Faith-book. I was going to stamp in the months and days on my 2016 calendar, however, it did not go as planned, as the black inkpad I brought with me was nearly dry. Good thing my hubby came to the rescue with an ink pen! However, then when I thought I was done, arrgh!  I had written in 2015 instead of 2016, so I had to cross all those out and write it in right. Oh, for a white-out pen!  And, I brought colored markers to use as colored ink on  those planner rubber stamps for the holidays and found out I was missing a few -- here's a list to look for next year: a crown, a fall leaf,  a tiny flag, a turkey, a tiny birthday cake or candle, a snowflake, a tiny clock for daylight savings time - "spring forward, fall back," and a tiny female and male smiley for Mother's Day and Father's Day.

This is my theme word and scripture sheet for the verses this month that Stephanie sends weekly along with the theme word of the month. Last year, I wrote out the verses on index cards, but adding them to my Documented Faith notebook made it bulky and this year I wanted a slimmer version, hence a MS Word table document made of two columns and three rows and hung from this nifty wooden pants hanger and removable hook.

And guess what coloring page for my January divider won out? Clue: I'm royalty!

 

 

We had a homework assignment from Stephanie last week -- we were to cut out a reminder about gratitude and attach it to our faith-books. I added both of them to the back of my monthly divider, however, I must say, worry is not the same as grieving for present relationships that may never be healthy. Even though I believe God is in control of the universe, he gave people free-will, and they may resist God's tug at their hearts. That said, it is where I am at, praying for three healthy relationships which may never happen, yet I don't give up hope for change. Lord, I hear your call to persevere!

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Writing Campaign: I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks and finally came to a conclusion and resolution - - a junior family member has been purchasing some Snickers candy bars with  the new wrappers for me -- with negative character traits like drama mama, loopy, and goofball. He thinks it's funny, but it is actually an underhanded slam-dunk.  As of today, I won't be tolerating it any longer, because it bothers me on so many levels, especially since I joined Jennifer McGuire's card making challenge last November for the Kind Campaign,  showing a photo of  a "carpenters extending  golden ruler" that I had previously made for my Sunday School kids during the week of the  challenge I was sick.  Right after that, I read an online Katie Couric article about the Campaign (even boys need lessons in kindness) and after thinking it through,  in my opinion,  I think Snickers could have done a better job of advertising their product. I can think of some positive words that could be used instead on their candy bar wrappers that are sweet like the inside candy -- such as lovely, precious, sweet, thankful, and so forth.
So today, I wrote them a letter of complaint. Now this kind of complaint is the good kind meant to change something for the better not grumbling against God. If you think the wrappers are  a bad idea too, please join me in writing a letter to the candy company. One person changed the world. You can too! Perhaps if enough of us complain, they will change their wrappers to promote blessing instead of off-handed bullying. Click here  for the Snickers contact form. And, in advance, thank you.