Restoration Through Creativity…

 

Handicrafts serve as a means of communication amoung people who are afraid, shy or sick, or even people who speak different languages.  There is something reassuring, homey, pleasant and relaxing to see someone embroidering or knitting in an airport or on a train.  One feels a trust and confidence about such a person.  If one has some similar work at hand, one becomes friends almost without words.  Or one might ask what the other is doing; and a bond of friendship, gentle and warm, is established with a person who only a short time ago was a stranger.  The handicraft is a bridge.

All creative efort is from God, and people who do handicrafts create.  To create is to be at peace, for in creating one is joined with the Creator.  Creativeness is one of the needs of our humanity and one of the gifts of God to us.  Handicrafts also are one more way of restoring us to wholeness in the natural and psychological order so as to better restore us to Christ.  The loneliness of modern people has almost reached a point of no return; but in a comon effort of creativity, men and women may find someone else who is interested in similar crafts, and become friends through their craftsmanship.  Friendship is still the most precious possession that a human being can share.  So handicrafts open the door to both friendship and creativity.  These aspects go together, for friendship both creates and demands creativity to grow. 

 By Catherine Doherty in  my Women’s Devotional Bible

Based on Psalm 90:17   “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.”

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Preparing For Change

Once again I am preparing for change. 

The toughest thing about it is that I don’t know what that change will be.  My company was recently purchased, and “corporate redundancies” will cause job loss for some, and the rest have to prepare for change.  We don’t know what kind, or what that change will look like, but change will come.

I used to thrive on change.  When I was younger I looked on change as a challenge.  I don’t know when change turned to stress, but that’s what it did.  Uncertainty gives me a heaache and heart palpitations!  The thought of losing my job – the first job post college that I have just started to feel like I was excelling at – is in jeopardy.  It makes me terrified to think of starting over yet again.  Starting over after the divorce was the hardest thing I ever did.  I know I can make it through this, but  I don’t want to have to.

I have become a security junkie in a world where there is no security.  I learned that marriage doesn’t offer it, and jobs no longer offer a lifetime of security like they used to.  We move, we change careers, cell phone plans, upgrade our computers and televisions at alarming rates.  Nothing is secure.

Except for God.  My security must come from him.  Only He has the ability to offer the security and comfort I seek.  Why is it so difficult to accept what He offers and instead expect it of an ever-changing world?

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge…”  Psalm 18:2

 

Pantone Unveils Color Report for Spring 2011

During the recently held Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, The Pantone Color Institute Forecast an

exotic color palette for next year.

 
Exotic destinations like Africa, India, Peru, and Turkey inspire colors for spring

2011, as “designers continue to satisfy consumers’ need to escape everyday

challenges with intriguing color combinations that transport them to

foreign lands,” according to the report.
 
“The colors designers have chosen for the spring season present an interesting

marriage of unexpected warm and cool tones,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive

director of the Pantone Color Institute, told the press.
 
The effects of combining colors with their opposites on the wheel creates

a striking palette and allows consumers to “pair existing pieces in colors

traditionally associated with fall, with new favorites to punch up springtime

wardrobes,” continued Eiseman. 
 
Spring picks for women’s fashion include:

  
By JCK Staff, Posted on September 24, 2010

Awed and Amazed

Do you ever just marvel at your children?  Do you ever just wonder what part you might have had in assisting God to create such incredible people?  Are you ever awed at their gifts?  Their passions?  Their individuality?

I am regularly in the position of being awed and amazed at one of my children.  Here’s my reason tonight on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrILtIN17Mc

This is my 13 -year-old son.  His talent impresses me and his faith inspires me.  I had to share.

Kandinsky for Today…

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting,

and…stop thinking! 

Just ask yourself whether the work has enable you

to “walk about” into a hitherto unknown world. 

 If the answer is yes, what more do you want?

Kandinsky, 1910