Homegrown Hospitality

Documented Faith Week 12

As mentioned last week, each week I will be posting the Documented Faith verse and message on this post with a link to where you can go and read and download it. This post will coordinate with the post on the Documented Faith page so I suggest you refer to both.  I know it seems a little repetitive but some just want to see it here, some prefer getting emails, some are used to getting the information via the FB book page and it seriously, it all bears repeating.  The important thing you need to know is that it is all the same info, just in a few different formats.  It reminds me of how I am simply complicated.  A description that I have been using for the past 10 years.  It is the plain ol' truth.  Not fighting it, just embracing it.

So this weeks verse comes from the book of Jeremiah and is verse 29:13.  "When you look for me with all your heart, you will find me" 

Pretty cut and dry but as a flawed human (throwing myself under the bus here) I complicate it because I don't always do it with "all my heart."  This weeks verse ties in perfectly with my everyday goal to surrender daily.  Surrendering cant be done just a little and only sometimes.  It needs to be done completely and all the time.  The same goes for the verse.  You cant look for God with part of your heart or a little of your heart.  

Just like surrender, I have to be all in and with all my heart.

Note to self: I need to see this reminder everywhere and so in this weeks message and download, I encourage you to print it out and trim the little strips of the verse to put in little places as constant reminders. It is the best I can do besides getting it tattooed on my arm or forehead.

Also included in this weeks message and verse is a brand new Easter doodle for you to download, print out and color.  It might be a fun craft to do with your kids and family on Easter. There is nothing special or tricky about doing this.  All I did was print it out on my home printer on regular ol' printer paper and used a water brush and Neocolors.  The best tip I can tell you in less water, more color and blot with a paper towel as you go so that your paper doesn't disintegrate with the moisture.

A look inside my binder for week 11 & 12.  Honestly, there are a lot of blank spots in the past few months and THAT IS OKAY. sometimes there are blank spots because I have either journaled in my Bible or in my other planner.  I am reminding myself and reminding you that there are no rules on how and when to do any of this.  Again, the most important thing is that YOU are in the word.

drop the mic.

On the first page of the month I started with a pencil and pen and sat on my bed and doodled all sorts of things as seen in this photo:
A few days later, I added some color again, with my Neocolors and water brush: With the release of the DEVOTE kit, I have been adding the journaling stickers to the pages, using the sticker strips on the edges of my devotional booklet pages as well as the edges of my binder pages as reinforcement

I stapled the right and bottom sides of the devotional cover, punched holes and filled it with all of the cards and notes I have been receiving the past month and added it to my binder.  It really bulked up the binder so honestly, I may take it out an put it somewhere else or in a few months my binder will not be able to close!

I added a tab to the page that I tore out of the Devote kit verse booklet and used the stickers that came with the kit, yay!

and lastly, I trimmed the "Parenthesis" on the right side of my binder page and folded it over and dang it, it is sorta cute!


Okie dokie friends, that is all the energy I have for you today.  Please remember that if you create and share on social media streams, use the hashtag #documentedfaith so I can see what you are making!

Quick Links: 

NEW LOCATION Documented Faith page with  monthly words and weekly verses here

Documented Faith Companion Kits & Binders available here

 

I am back, sorta.

Welcome to week Eleven of Documented Faith and to the 11th week of 2016.  I have to admit with the clearest mind I have had in 3 weeks that the past 11 weeks have been a do-zee. Thank you for all of your prayers, cards, gifts, flowers and messages.  I appreciate each one of them and each one of you.  All of this was not part of my plan for 2016...but really, it is not my plan.

#duh.

If you want to just continue on with Documented Faith and not read the rest of this blog post, I just ask that you finish reading this paragraph and then head over to Documented Faith. There is another NEW link to the content for 2016.  Changes are happening, will continue to happen and they are all good.  PLEASE do not get discouraged with change. The changes I am making are so that it is EASIER to navigate what I am doing, where I am teaching, what I am selling and weekly messages and verses for Documented Faith.  

If you look up at the header right now, you will see a row of dotted circles with words in the middle.  Each one of these are links to a different place. For instance, if you click on the dotted circle that reads ETSY, it will take you to the new ETSY shop where you can get the Documented Faith Kits.

If you click on the dotted circle that reads Documented Faith then it will take you to where all of the weekly messages are. You will be able to download the weekly verses, see what I am doing in my binder and be reminded of what the monthly focus words are. This months focus word is DEVOTE.  Yay for simple...

Okay now I will continue on with this blog post.

I had no idea that when God plopped the word PREPARE into my lap last November as my word for 2016 that this would be what is was going to mean. All of the time I have spent in bed, on the couch, sleeping and cancelling events and workshops has prompted many things that I have needed to write down either on paper or in the "notes" part of my iphone. When something has popped into my mind whether I was asleep or awake, I had to take note of it. 

My AMAZING WONDERFUL AWESOME Dr. that is taking care of me now was also my OB/GYN who delivered my boys 17 and 20 years ago and again, in addition to my family and friends, I am in the best care.  It is CRAZY that a problem or two I had during pregnancy reared its ugly head on top of the problems that we were trying to solve and take care of and she was right there to not only dig deep, look close, listen to me, pay attention and diagnose but also find answers to issues from 17 years ago!  The body is a fantastic and complicated thing and we must pay attention, take care and PREPARE ourselves for life.

With all of that aside, I wanted to also share something that was one of those things that popped into my head probably at about 2:30 am. This is something that I do not recall ever sharing online.  Since a very young age, I have "arm-wrestled" with depression and have taken medication for a really long time.

Gulp.  As I typed that last sentence, I just sat here and stared at it.

When I was younger, NOBODY knew.  I was embarrassed, ashamed and never told anyone because the world had attached a tag to it of being weak (it sorta still has that tag  but my hopes are that by sharing it and being vocal, it will help others.)  In addition to that, I have also always arm wrestled with hormones so it was always a double whammy, dang it! An ongoing lifelong game of "Whack-A-Mole."  Add in big events like marriages, births, divorce, training and running for a marathon and things like that, those things tend to be stress hormone suckers for me and I become, by all account, a whirling dervish (even though I have since learned on some random tv show that a Whirling Dervish is a type of dancer) 

ANYWAYS...with all of that shared, I now have to go lay down and rest! Just know that it is going to be an ongoing topic of discussion both here on the blog and in Documented Faith.  For now, just click on the dotted circles above and check things out.

Thank YOU for ALWAYS getting me and my blah, blah, blah.....