Take Me Deeper - February Week 3

I know it's a recurring theme for me LOL but can you believe it's the 3rd week of February already?!
Shrove Tuesday has come and Ash Wednesday, and I am so thankful for the Take Me Deeper Project as well as all the lovely people at His Kingdom Come.

Remember, if you've not already joined us and would like to, you can find he Take Me Deeper Project and other classes HERE at His Kingdom Come!

So, to this week's study! I read the provided Bible quote in context. and then looked for commentaries. Within them I found three thoughts that stuck with me:

- a community of love shines as a light

- genuine love and unity among Christians was a major cause, perhaps the strongest single cause, of the spread of Christianity

- love acts in obedience to God's will, under the guidance of the Spirit.

Then I didn't have the chance to try and create anything for a week, and so went back to the readings and searched for Bible quotes about neighbours. I found:
Leviticus 19:17 - ...but love your neighbour as you love yourself
Isaiah 58:9-10 - If you put an end to oppression, to every gesture of contempt, and to every evil word; if you give food to the hungry and satisfy those who are in need, then the darkness around you will turn to the brightness of noon.

John 14:26 - But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Matthew 25:40 - ...I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these members of my family, you did it for me.

I have the jam jar with escaping butterfly representing us, through love, escaping from our little confined, self-centred worlds. Once I'd got that on the page I got a bit fed up as it seemed flat and I had zero ideas how to progress the page! So I prayed and it came to me to add in some extra darkness around the jar...I ended up making that into a wasteland-type landscape, representing the dark and miserable world we live in if we don't love our neighbour and care for others. I took out most of the colour from that area to make it more stark.
Then the bright butterflies of love and care, once released out into the world, bring 'the brightness of noon', shown by the blue sky and rays of light.
The representation of the Spirit is carried on into this piece as well.

Basically, a dark world can be transformed into a world of light and colour by one simple thing - love.

Jam jar brush from SpiritSigh at DeviantArt; the rest is created by me with CU brushes and a CU texture.
TFL!
Bernie x

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