Take Me Deeper - February Week 1

Well that's another week passed with me barely seeing it lol! Lots of late nights this week for some reason, which meant I wasn't up as early and lost my creating time, and time when I can easily go online to HKC and other places uninterrupted! Plus my dad was unwell, which when he's 90, is always cause for concern. As always though, head down, plough on, with prayer, and see where I end up!

So, February Week 1! I started at John 3:16 of course - For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

Then I was drawn to John 3:8 - 'the wind blows wherever it wishes; you hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
Well then I wanted to know more about what that actually meant! I found two commentaries: The first was saying that the Spirit sends influence where, when and on whom and in what measure and degree he pleases, leading to regeneration and transformation. God sent His Son to make us aware, accepting and believing.
The second commentary gave this: that in human minds the Spirit doesn't reveal itself, but its effects - we discern the Spirit's presence by its effects.

I then read John 3:21 - But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.

So somehow I was meandering through all these thoughts and readings and no definitive image was coming to mind! Which after last month was a bit disconcerting lol! So I prayed and opened up Photoshop and just started to put stuff on the page. I actually started with creating a word art around the word Believe but that was completely left behind once the piece started to form!!

The page has a hint of a representation of our world with the circle and the trees behind the hands. The hands are of course representing God giving the world His precious gift. I liked the idea of keeping the butterfly as an ongoing theme since my transformation is ongoing and it seemed to fit with the idea of the wind blowing in John 3:8. It also, through its gentleness, seemed to represent what I read in John 3:17 - 'For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but its Saviour.' There is a representation of the wind there, swirling around within the light, included for John 3:21. Of course, my Logos365 word, Focus, is easily represented here with the butterfly being the central focus of the image and of the readings!

Looking at this now I'm amazed how this came from reading one verse, John 3:16, and being led through other readings and commentaries towards this summary of it all! I'm sitting here almost in disbelief in what taking part in TMD is doing for me! If you're not already taking part, why not come and have a look and join us?! Doesn't have to be digital art, it can be any kind of creating you please! We have people creating beautiful pieces in mixed media, materials, photographs, poetry...it's wonderful and so inspiring! You can find take Me Deeper at His Kingdom Come here!
TFL!
Bernie x
(made with my own paper as background then the rest created with CU brushes. Hands with butterfly image is a brush from Spiritsigh at DeviantArt.)

Take Me Deeper - Week 4

Well, this has been a week and a half jam packed with emotion and decisions to make and lots and lots of praying lol! As a family we have decided that school is not the best place for our youngest daughter, 12, to achieve the best kind of education for her, or for her to be fulfilled. So we have made the decision to Home Educate her!

It's a big step but one that feels so right for her and for us all, at this moment in time. Hubby and I have been shown throughout these past few weeks since we started looking into Home Education that we are most definitely not able to control the things we would like to!! Given that, it's important to realise that we can only do what is best for us at this moment in time. No point in worrying about the future or how today's decisions will affect tomorrow...leave that to God to order and take care of and bring us though.

So, the letter goes into school today to deregister her, and from next week we are officially a Home Educating family! We've got some resources already, are collecting others, and I've met some really lovely people - other Home Educators - online who are SO helpful with links to online resources! Firstly though, children who are taken out of school should have a period of 'deschooling' to get them out of the school day mentality. Home Education, can be so much freer and informal than school, and it's important that the child gets back to their natural state of being inquisitive and wanting to learn, and learn according to their interests as well. It's a whole new mindset for parents as well as children, and it is accepted wisdom that time should be taken to 'deschool'. During this time we'll be talking about how we want to study and what we want to study. of course, we know that children are learning all the time through their everyday experiences, so that is where we are starting from during the period of deschooling. I'm looking forward to getting things organised and starting to do more of the things that our daughter loves to do but rarely had time for during the week as she was just so exhausted after school and homework!

I suppose I should have known something was coming, lol, what with the Take Me Deeper theme for the month being Transformation! I really feel I have been transformed good n proper in certain ways through this experience, lol! From dismissing Home Educating out of hand initially, thinking I wouldn't be up to it and it had to be much more formally done than is actually the case, to one day just being aware of the words 'freely give' in my head. Must have been words from God as I remember no connection with anything I was reading or listening to at the time! That was when I started googling Home Education UK and found out just how wonderful it can be and not at all how I'd thought it would have to be done! I felt such peace when thinking I could actually do this for our daughter! So I researched some more and spoke to hubby, and we have been led towards today when the official letter will go into school!

My mind has been well and truly opened and educated and it has been a really strong lesson in trusting God to take us through hardships that come; trusting that He will lead us to do the right thing when we can't possibly know how something will pan out; trusting that even if we're making a mistake He will get us through; trusting that he will be there with me, helping me to cope with the everyday practicalities of Home Educating! Realising that we don't have to simply settle for what everyone else is doing just because society says that's what we should do! Thinking about things that hadn't really impacted me before - how children, young children, are doing 10+ hour days and still having to do homework in their downtime once their home! How many adults would do a 10 hour day (inc travelling time), then when they get home do a couple more hours' work, all for no reward while they are doing it?! Just on trust that they may get a piece of paper at the end that may help them sometime in their future?!! That's what government deems suitable for the majority of children in our country, regardless of their own individual personalities and needs, which the system isn't really set up to cope very well with! Thank goodness we have the legal right to Home Educate!

Anyway, that's what I've been up to with my family these past few weeks. It's been quite draining but now the decision is made we can go forward positively I feel. So, here is my Week 4 page for Take Me Deeper! It's quite appropriate in regard to our situation, although I wasn't aware of that shaping the artwork when I did it!!

I did all the additional reading - this seems to be a pattern now, unless and until I've done all that reading not a single glimmer of an image will enter my head LOL! My thinking on this one involved themes from each one of the other readings plus extra bits that I read around those! (ie I couldn't stop at just the verses suggested!!) You can find the Take Me Deeper Group, and the prompts etc here if you'd like to join in!

The girl is rising up out of the waves of doubt, leaving those behind, focussed on God (the rays of light). Rising towards God's approval and possessing the blessings that God keeps in Heaven for His people - those who through faith are kept safe by God's power.

So we rise up and do not sink. We can be confident that a righteous life will be the reward.

The girl was made using Sewing Patterns font, and I chopped the arms around a bit to make them rise up! Then clipped papers to her to make her like a paper-pieced doll. The butterflies are still present showing transformation all around - God working on us and with us. We just need to keep our focus (my Logos365) in the right place!

The rest was created using CU brushes and stash from Altered Amanda's Studio.

TFL!
Bernie x

Take Me Deeper - Week 3

Well, what a week is has been! Let's just say that I've been having to focus (my Logos 365 word!) really hard on the Lord lately to cope with everything affecting our family at present! Even down to looking into Home Educating my youngest because of problems with school - something I really hadn't seen becoming a distinct possibility!

Anyway, as I've been waking at 3.15am all week, I've made good use of this quiet time to enjoy reading all the extra suggested passages within the TMD prompt. A pattern seems to be forming now where not a single speck of an image for a piece of art around the prompt will even suggest itself until I've done all the suggested reading...and once I get started with the reading, it's all too easy to carry on past the suggested passages! I'm loving it!!

I loved reading all the extra suggested passages, and the 'feel' of an image around a veil and light and keeping the butterflies started forming! Once the idea had formed in my head, I was a bit concerned about how I would translate that onto the page...but thankfully, Altered Amanda's Studio had just the stash I needed to make the vision come to life!

You can find the Take Me Deeper Project and prompts here. 

For this piece, once I had it laid out as I liked, I lightened part of the veil to give a feeling of reflected light - we will reflect God's glory when we are transformed into His likeness. The lady has lowered eyes - submission - and the veil is coming off (ie doesn't cover her whole face any more), showing an ongoing process, started but not yet complete. The light is there to focus on, and the butterflies leading towards the light signifying the transformation that will come once we are joined with Christ (when the veil is lifted).

I'm enjoying this project so much and finding it such a help when life is throwing so much at us at present! if you haven't already, do come and have a look and join with us! you don't have to do digital art if that's not your thing! Whatever response you feel led to is great! Poetry, paint on paper, mixed media, wood carving, fibre craft...the list goes on! There's loads of inspiration in the TMD gallery at His Kingdom Come...just take a look!

TFL!

Bernie x

Coming Together

So, Logos365 started on 1st January, and Take Me Deeper on 2nd January 2015. I read the prompt for Logos 365, prayed, wrote some notes, read Bible passages then put it to one side to kinda sink in before creating any art.

The next day, the last Friday of the school Christmas holidays, we had planned to take our dog, Amber, for a nice 3.5 mile walk out in the countryside in a place we had never been to before. We prepared well; map, phones all fully charged, food and drink, appropriate clothing. The walk was described as a 'gentle' walk which can get a little muddy at times.

Well, it all started off OK, but we didn't seem to be progressing very far on the list of stops along the way despite walking for ages and encountering rather more mud than we'd been led to expect! We thought about turning back fairly near the start but it was so beautiful once we got into the forest part that we wanted to carry on a bit further. BIG mistake!

Amber was loving it of course! There was a little stream full of muddy water crossing the first part of the walk and she decided to jump (or fall not too sure!) in not once but twice! Coat and all! Once in the forest she was loving scenting out the squirrels.

At one stage she disappeared off quite far away from us (not something she usually does) and didn't want to come back until our youngest daughter, Evie, went to fetch her. I joked that maybe she's trying to tell us we should go that way. I wish I had listened to that nagging little though thought, as she was probably correct!

We pressed on looking for the turnings in the directions, and we did exit the forest eventually - out into massive fields with a beautiful view. That was when we really started paying attention that the sun was setting! Amber however, took advantage of our need to rest a while and shot off into some enormous bushes that had dense twigs and branches covered with 2 inch long spikes. We could hear them scratching on her coat - the new coat, rather expensive too, that Evie had chosen for Amber for Christmas! When she finally managed to get out from the bushes, Amber was minus her coat!

What to do? The day was drawing in and it was becoming darker, so time was of the essence; the bushes were so dense there was no way for us to get in there and locate the coat; hubby tried to use the big rucksack to push a way through but the bush was too strong...so we had to leave the coat there and comfort ourselves with the thought of some wild animal having a nice new lining for its den or burrow!

Basically from then on things became more hairy. We had to trudge back through half the forest, off in a different direction, through massive fields, up hill and down, sodden grassy fields at that! Through narrow patches of forest and out into more fields. The directions said to go diagonally across the field, but when we tried the field was so muddy and so churned up there was no way we could have walked through it. So we had to follow the edge of the field round the outskirts of the forest to reach the top of the hill. This was the point where we all almost despaired.

Evie's boots had so much of the clay-type mud stuck to them she could not physically lift her feet from the ground any more. Hubby tried to break off a branch to scrape with and almost fell into the mud! Our eldest daughter fell over and had stinging nettle rashes everywhere it seemed, as well as pain in her knees, especially the one that was operated on a few years ago, causing great concern for us all. I had been walking along praying and trying to just be thankful for the almost-full moon that was shining and the lack of any black clouds in the sky! But at this point, I was almost in tears with how hopeless it seemed that we would ever find our way back to the start of the walk and the safety of our car!

Then something just came over me, and I said firmly to everyone that we needed to just FOCUS! Pray and focus and put one foot in front of the other and just walk. Didn't matter if it were slow, just keep going. And that's what we did!

Eventually we came to a bungalow in the middle of an enormous field and knew we were on the right track! After passing by that and more field walking, we came to a bridge and could then see the concrete of the long lane that would lead to the main road! Yay!

We must have looked a sight as we came out through the trees into the lane but we were past caring! Even from there though it was about another 15-20 minutes walk back to the car! This alleged 3.5 mile walk that shouldn't really have taken more than a couple of hours at most had taken almost double that! Exhausted we drove home, picking up a take away on the way, and collapsed together in front of the TV to try and forget it all!! We did vow never to go to a new place to walk the dog ever again - whether we hold true to that only time will tell!!

I was still up quite early and before everyone else on the Saturday morning, and decided to read again the Take Me Deeper prompt. I read my notes from the Logos365 prompt to remind myself what I'd written, and was amazed to see that a quote within the Take Me Deeper prompt actually described perfectly the three points I'd made! That was when I knew that my word for the year was going to change from Mindful to be FOCUS! Not a word I'd use much generally day to day, and yet it had come into my head on the walk when we were despairing, and it was a much better, more proactive word than mindful for what I wanted for my year!

As I read the Take Me Deeper prompt about being transformed, it all just seemed to come together that this was what I'd been asking and hoping for this year with the help of these projects - to be transformed and focus more on deepening my faith and understanding. It was actually amazing - the choice of Transformation as the first TMD prompt; the word Focus in my head on the walk and actually helping us to get out of those fields and forests!; and then the quote summing up so perfectly what I had written before I'd even seen it!

So I opened up Photoshop and started to create. I wanted to use all these feelings and the amazement and sheer perfection of it all coming together within my page but had no real idea how I was going to do that! I started creating something to represent the dark forest. Then I almost stopped and started over as it seemed too dark - as in depressing! But somehow, among all my playing with blend modes and light effects, the glimmer of an idea I'd had in my head started to appear on the screen! Getting the light right gave me problems and then suddenly, what I wanted just appeared after changing the order of a few layers! I'd had no idea that effect would happen but it did! his spurred me on and although it did take about 4 hours to complete, I ended up with a page that I love; that illustrates for me the events of those 2 days, and a page that I feel I can't take any credit for as mostly I have no idea how I created it LOL!!

So, after that long chunk of my story, here's my Take Me Deeper page, and also my Logos 365 page. I decided to make the Logos365 page in keeping with my TMD page, and think I may get all the pages printed into a book at the end of the year. So we have the representation of the dark forest, the light for us to FOCUS on, and the butterflies signifying many different ways I can be transformed if I just allow the light to lead me on. (By the by it was only later, after looking again at my cover page, that I realised the theme of warm light leading me in started even there, I just hadn't realised how real it was going to become! Nice!!)