I'm only four songs in and I am in love with this album ❤

Why My Bible Looks The Way It Does...

 The Bible intimidated me for a while. I knew it was important, but numbers were involved and the pages were thin and the font was small. Nevertheless, I began reading. I knew the stories, but I read them again. I read as much as I could and as much as I wanted to. I started writing things down and keeping notes. I kept reading. I read the Old Testament and fell in love with God and His Promises. I fell in love with Jesus in the New Testament. My Bible looks the way it does because I fell in love with Jesus.

Exodus: Glorious and beautiful

Verses: Exodus 26:36, 27:16, 28:2, 5, 6, 8, 15

I love this. These verses are about the curtain in the tabernacle, the priestly clothing, all of it. God desired the curtains and the clothing to be beautiful and glorious. (He was telling Moses this.) With regards to the curtain, terminology is used like, "decorate with colourful embroidery" and "use finely woven linen". Certain colours are mentioned: red, scarlet, gold, blue, and purple. 

Here's what this tells me: God wants beauty. He creates and desires beauty. He delights in the beautiful and glorious!!! He filled people with the skills required to carry out the work- the craftsmen "whom he had filled with the Spirit of Wisdom". God gave them the gift of making beautiful things!! God delights and desires glorious beauty.    

Pottery & The Potter

 Hello world!

Today I started throwing on the wheel after not throwing for years. I had two attempts; the second much better than the first. By the second throw, my hands were covered in mud and my arms were getting a work out. 

To throw, you exercise your core and arms. You're steadying your arms by supporting them against your knees and applying pressure with both hands. The left is pressing on the side while the right hand is pressing on the top of the clay. You're bending over the wheel as you're pressing on the clay to form the base. Once the base is formed, you form a hole in the centre with both thumbs. Then, you pull the borders of the pot or vase or bowl up, and apply even pressure from both the inside and outside of the clay as you pull up, being careful to maintain a medium speed on the wheel. When you throw, through the whole process you should maintain a fast-to-medium speed. Do not go too slow. It's also important to keep the clay wet as well.   

And as I was bending over the wheel, my hands covered in wet clay, I was thinking about the process, what the clay felt like as it formed under my fingers, and how God calls himself a potter, and us the clay.  Jeremiah 18:1-6, "The LORD gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, 'Go down to the potter's shop, and I will speak to you there.' So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. Then the LORD gave me this message: 'O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand'." And, Isaiah 64:8 says, "And yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand". 

I love this so much. God took the time and labor to create each one of us. 

Merciful God

"I will say to the prisoners, 'Come out in freedom', and to those in darkness, "Come into the light'. They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures and on hills that were previously bare. They will neither hunger nor thirst. The searing sun will not reach them anymore. For the LORD in his mercy will lead them; and he will lead them beside cool waters. And I will make my mountains into level paths for them. The highways will be raised above the valleys. See, my people will return from far away, from the lands to the north to the west, and from as far south as Egypt." ~ Isaiah 49:9-12

"Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back  when we have been separated from him." ~ 2 Samuel 14:14