It's Monday, thank you so much for joining us today! Do you have those friends you see online, you know the ones.. you admire their work.. their creativity seems effortless while always being on the cutting edge of AWESOMESS? That's BECKY! So imagine my surprise when she contacted me about this journaling bible wildfire we have going here!
Her pages just take my breath away EACH and EVERY time! So I was excited to see what she would do with her journaling bible!
I have always been a note taker. In school, I would have pages of notes and doodles from classes. I think it's not only because I love to learn, but also because if I'm listening to someone speak, I can't sit still and focus if I'm not engaged with my hands. Taking sermon notes is something that started when I was taking catechism class and it was a requirement. I can honestly say that when my classmates were complaining, I secretly loved it. I figured out quickly that if I wrote down key points, it stuck with me. I can still remember sermons from long ago and I doubt that would be the case if I hadn't taken notes.
So as time has passed, I had become a little stagnant in my personal Bible study. At the beginning of 2014, I was reflecting on where I was spiritually and decided I needed to get more focused and prayed that God would give me a fresh love for His Word. I started praying each morning before I read that He would really speak to me. He was so gracious and gave me fresh insights almost daily. I started to keep a written record of these spiritual insights and it became exciting again. As I became more excited about His Word, he opened my eyes to our Pastor's teaching and how it is a gift to received such great teaching each week. He preaches the Word unapologetically and he does not water it down to make it more palatable. I think that is rare and I'm finally embracing it and learning so much.
When I saw Shanna's initial blog post about Bible journaling, I was immediately smitten with the idea. I have basically been doing it with my doodled up sermon notes for years, but hadn't added mixed media or done it in an actual Bible, my notes were all done with a favorite black writing pen. Our Pastor has been preaching from the book of Acts for a few months now and it's been great, but rather than waiting for a new series or trying to go back and do all of the past sermons, I started with his first sermon of a 3 parts on Acts 20. This is my first official Bible journaling page and project. So be kind! I simply used watercolors, stickers, stamps, ink, scrap paper, pen and pencil.
My approach right now, is to continue to take my sermon notes in my church bulletin and then come home and transfer it prayerfully and creatively to my Bible journal. I'm pretty open-minded about this, so in the future I may use it for my daily spiritual insights too. Right now, I'm in a busy season for photography, so for now, I plan to just use it for my notes, but maybe in the winter when it slows down, I'll change it up. I'm just happy to be able to have a way to keep these valuable notes and insights right in this Bible.
Thank you Shanna for being so willing to share this process and encourage so many of us to make it our own!
Thank YOU so much Becky for being willing to put your heart out there and share with all of us! It means to much!! Becky and I worked on a little printable (along a print & cut version) together. I wanted it to be in true BECKY fashion so I even had her cut a couple sayings out for you! They are my favorite!!
you can download this here
Thank you for stopping by today! If you have any questions please
feel free to post them below or email me at shannanoelATgmailDOTcom!
go.be.inspired.
Shanna
