Purpose

Last week I wrote about the background to my choice of one word for 2016: Purpose although I didn't really spell it out and maybe at the end of the blog post you were wondering the connection between what you had read and my choice of word.

When I stood down from the Foundation Team at His Kingdom Come I felt a real peace about it but also a sense of loss.  The formation and running of HKC had been my focus and purpose for over 12 months.  And as I said in my post introducing my word: 'But giving up something that is successful without God saying what is next is bittersweet and I'm not good at just resting or not knowing what is coming next.'

I felt that I needed a purpose or a vision for what is coming next.  And I seriously thought about having Vision as my word.   'Where there is no vision, the people perish ..' Proverbs 29:18

But Purpose kept coming back into my mind.  I also prayed about it.

And various books and articles kept showing up which helped confirm the right choice.

I looked online for a dictionary definition of purpose
• : the reason why something is done or used : the aim or intention of something
• : the feeling of being determined to do or achieve something
• : the aim or goal of a person : what a person is trying to do, become, etc.

A friend posted a link on Facebook to a website which also led me to a book: Chazown - the book and the website

In May, Mary wrote some devotions for His Kingdom Come based on self-care and I intend to return to those and to look at the links Mary provided:

• Personality test resources: I (Mary) personally prefer the Myers-Briggs personality assessment. It is very in-depth and used by many churches and employers.   16 Personalities   or  Typefinder Personality test
• Spiritual gifts test resources:
• Saddleback Church, home of pastor Rick Warren has a great tool called SHAPE to help understand how you are wired.

I have signed up for One Little Word and downloaded the ebook from logos365 and will use the ideas from both to combine to make my own exploration of Purpose throughout 2016.

Listen to the words of this song.

I want to dig down into what makes me the person I am and to tell my story.  To get that going I signed up for a class from Jeanne Oliver: Reflections.

I much prefer to choose a word for the year - something that I want to see more of in my life.  Do you choose a word for the year?  If so, why not share it in the comments below.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

My word for 2016

Over recent years I have chosen a word for the year that I focus on.  I shared about my word for 2015 last December.

The word for 2015 was Thirst.  And it really didn't grab me.  I did some journal pages for the first three months.

January

February

March

But to be honest, my heart wasn't in it and at the beginning of April I gave up on it altogether.

I have spent most of 2015 being really busy helping to run His Kingdom Come.   You can read about how I became to be involved with HKC at A Story & a Giveaway (the giveaway is now closed!) and I expected to be involved with it still through 2016.  In fact we started discussing Take Me Deeper - DNA back in April.

However towards the end of October I began to feel that it was time for me to move on.

Several times in my ministry career I have worked on things that God has asked me to do – setting up new ministries, organising conferences and even helping set up a new company – and then passing them on to others to run.   To be sure that I was hearing correctly about HKC, I asked a friend to pray for me without saying the reason why and she said ‘You are gifted and know sometimes things are for seasons.’    This confirmed for me that the season was ending for me with regard to the Foundation Team at His Kingdom Come.

But giving up something that is successful without God saying what is next is bittersweet and I'm not good at just resting or not knowing what is coming next.

So what is next for me?  And what is my word for 2016?

Regular readers will know that I am involved in a new weekly online Bible study from my church: Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament.   And that I have signed up for rather a lot of online classes.

And my word?

Purpose

I'll explain why in another post on Sunday.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

What have you signed up to do in 2016?

If you've been reading my blog for a long while you will know that I had/have the tendency to sign up for online classes.  I tried very hard this year not to do too many because

1. I was rather busy with other things and
2. I hardly ever finish the classes

I am currently doing a class called Creative+Practice and today is the start of week 6 of 8 weeks and I am totally up to date.

At the beginning of the class we were asked to write our intentions for the class and I wrote 'I intend to finish the class'.  I'm patting myself on the back that I have got this far - I've got beyond the point where I normally give up.

So maybe that's the key thing when starting a new online class - commit to finishing it!   Sometimes with me it's even the case that I need to commit to starting it.

Currently I have signed up to do several classes in 2016 but maybe I'll just hold a watching brief over some of them and do my own thing rather than follow slavishly along and then feel bad when I fall by the wayside.

So what is on offer?  There's Take Me Deeper-DNA and Logos365 on His Kingdom Come.  Both of these are free and I will probably amalgamate them with other things that I might do.  Fortnightly on TMD-DNA there is a technique prompt and an I Am statement which I hope to play along with.  (For my US readers - fortnight means 2 weeks).

In January I am planning to follow a free bible study and a short art journaling course from Jeanne Oliver.   The Bible study, Listening:Finding the Quiet, is a four week study all about finding the quiet in each day and hearing the voice of God.  The art journaling course, Reflections, is a 'two week art journaling online course all about unraveling your own story and creating authentic art that only you can tell'.

Fortunately the art journaling class starts the week after Creative+Practice finishes.

Also in January I've signed up for Creative Jumpstart.   This isn't really a class as such.  There are 25 downloadable videos with various teachers showing techniques.  You can keep the videos as a reference library for when you are stuck for an idea.

So that brings me to the year long classes or workshops that I've signed up for.   I really like learning techniques and learning about different products so Wanderlust was a must for me.

One Little Word is a monthly class from Ali Edwards which I have done in previous years and will probably combine with Logos365.

I'm going to dip in and out of Documented Life Project - the unplanner.  I enjoyed parts of Documented Life Project in 2014 especially the fact that I combined my one little word with it.

And finally starting on January 6th, there's Glimpses of Jesus in the Old Testament - a Bible Study that I am working on with Simon Clay from Jubilee Church.  This is a free weekly bible study with optional creative responses.

Have I taken on too much?  Probably.

Will I complete it all?  Possibly not.

Will I enjoy it?  Definitely.

What have you committed to doing in 2016?

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Logos 365: March pages

The first prompt for March suggested starting a Pinterest board for my word.  I love Pinterest and spend way too much time there.  That aside, here is my Thirst board.

The second prompt was to find something that symbolised my word.  I couldn't decide what to choose at first but then I found this beautiful bottle shape on Google images.  I downloaded it and made it into 3 different sizes.  I cut the bottles shapes out in such a way that I could use them as a mask and a stencil.

I put the stencil down and then dragged Distress Ink from the edges into the shape.  I wrote a Bible verse around the shapes and stuck a printed Bible verse on the page.  Some washi tape finished it off.

This was a photograph I had taken some time ago which I found as I was searching for something else!  Isn't that always the way?

The photograph sort of sums up how I feel - the dryness and the lack of hydration.

Let's open the flap and see what is inside.

That's right - more bottles!

I drew round the shapes with a watercolour pencil and then I painted the bottles with ornage watercolour paint.  I don't think the page is finished but I'm not sure what else to put.

I tore out a bottle image from an advert and glued it into my book.  I added a quote, a Bible verse and a piece about hydration from an article in a magazine.  Then added my journaling.

Here are the 2 pages together.

I've started on my April pages and will share them here soon.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Logos 365: February pages

Last time I shared my January pages.  Today we will look at February.

Part of my struggle with getting the pages done is that I am fighting my word: Thirst.  I am defintiely not living it out like I did with Participate last year but I am endeavouring to keep going.

I printed out some verses and chose this passage from Isaiah 55 for this page.  I used some alphabet stickers for the words.   I made a postcard for the left hand page which will feature in a new collaborative class on His Kingdom Come in May.  I also printed out the words of 2 songs we have been singing at church the last couple of months.

I found I had some washi tape that looked like bubbles!  I printed out the image that I had found on Google Images.   I had also found some thirst quotes which I printed out and glued into my journal.  I put these on the inside pages of the flap.

I looked up the dictionary definition of Thirst and printed the information out and glued this in also.

Here are the pages together.

March pages coming up soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bernice

Logos 365: my one word

I have discovered that I haven't shared my one word pages with you.  To be honest it's not a senior moment in terms of blogging - it's that I didn't do the pages.

My only post has been this one where I changed my mind about how I am using my journal.  And even then I only showed you 2 of the 4 pages.

So what did I put on the inside of the flap?  The prompt suggested writing 5 goals for the year.  I had seen a great doodle on Pinterest which I printed out.  I found a stencil and a pot to draw round and drew 5 large circles for the 5 goals.

I drew over the pencil lines with black pen.

And then started filling in the spaces.

And filling!

Until the whole page was done.  I scribbled some blue with a Neocolor II watercolour crayon.

I spread the colour across the circles with a wet brush.  I added 3 goals.  The 4th one was added quite recently and I haven't set the 5th one.  And to be honest I haven't done anything about goals 1 & 2.

A lady I know on Facebook sent me this image which I printed out and stuck in my journal.

Here are the pages together.

And here are the 3 together.

So there's my response to the January prompts for Logos365 at His Kingdom Come.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

My word of the year in January

And yes I know it's February!

But I spent all of January fighting my word.  To find out how the word chose me you can read this post.

You may remember that I planned to do an art journaled calendar for each month through 2015 and this was my January calendar.

About 10 days into the month it became obvious that I wasn't going to fill in what had happened each day and after some thought I decided to give up on the whole calendar aspect of the journal.  I removed the flap attached to the right hand page so that the Thirst page would show.  I removed the 'flowers' from the left hand page.

I covered the page with gesso.

I added acrylic paint.

I thought that was too bright so I covered it with a light blue.

And as it was drying, wiped some of the pale blue off so that the layer underneath showed through.

I had a spare page left over from when I pulled pages out of my other Dylusions journal and fixed it to the left hand page with washi tape.  I had been using it under pages I was painting so that is why it has a stripe of blue acrylic on it.

I wiped two Distress Ink Pads over the page.

I tried blending the inks with a wet wipe which wasn't totally successful. Then using a blending tool I filled up the page.

I used a stencil to add the spray shapes.

I found some alphabet stickers and checked they weren't too big for the page by attaching them to a clear ruler.

I stuck them down.

One of the prompts for January in Logos365 was to make an acrostic.  I found words that matched some of my goals for the year and stuck down more alphabet stickers to make the words.

I found Bible verses that went with each word and printed them out.  I cut them up and inked the edges before sticking them down.

Here are the pages together.

I still have the pages to do under the flap.  I'll share those soon.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice