For me there are two aspects of Christmas that I find particularly helpful to remember at this time of year: that Jesus is the light of the World, and that He is our Emmanuel - God with us. Whatever we have walked through this past year, or are walking through now, and whatever lies ahead in the next year - He is our Emmanuel. Our God with us. Shining light into darkness.
So to start with, here's a double spread Faith Art Journal page I created a couple of years ago now:
To create this page, I painted red and green stripes in acrylic paint, which then looked much too bright and glaring, so I toned it down by scraping some white acrylic paint over the top with an old store card (my favourite acrylic paint technique!).
It was after our church Carols by Candlelight service (which I absolutely love and can't wait for this coming Sunday!) so I cut up my used carol sheet and basically mixed up some of the lyrics from my favourite Christmas carols and glued them onto the pages, randomly. (Feel free to play a quick game of 'name that carol' if you want to!)
Across the top of the page, I used a Calligraphy marker pen to write, 'Jesus, our Emmanuel' and highlighted the text with a silver pen.
It's a simple page, nothing fancy, but to me is full of meaning. I just love the name Emmanuel.
GOD with us!
God WITH us!
God with US!
Emmanuel!
It's such a mystery, that the LORD God Almighty - our Creator, holy and awesome in power and might, should be God With Us.
Son of God and Son of Man. The Word became flesh.
He brings us all hope. He brings us all the love of God. And His presence brings Light in our darkness.
And that we can have a personal relationship with Our Father God through Jesus, our precious Saviour - that's worth celebrating!
And to finish here's a little challenge /encouragement for you: over this Christmas time, in the middle of all the busy, try to prioritise some time alone with God. Just rest in His presence and in His grace. Read His Word. Pray. Sing. Create in your Journal or Journaling Bible if you want to, enjoy being creative and expressing your love for Him.
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| Quote from Ann Voskamp |
Lovely :-) it's so great to be able to share your creative process and I really enjoyed your blog post.
ReplyDeleteThis is so true - with all the hustle and bustle and comercialism of Christmas it really does make a difference if we take time with God our Father.
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