Job 39:13-18 - The joyfully silly ostrich

I'm claiming 'Joy' as my word for 2018, so I'm going through my bible periodically to look at verses which talk about being joyful. Today's joyfully silly ostrich is inspired by a passage in Job.

The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labour was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider.

 -  Job 39:13-18

I loved the image of the ostrich laughing as it runs away, not worrying about anyone else and just enjoying what it can do. I think it's a good reminder that we should find joy in our own circumstances and not compare ourselves to other people.
 
I found an ostrich image on Google and altered the pose a little when I copied it into my bible. I used watercolour pencils for most of the image, and a black Micron and white gel pen to highlight and write.

Zechariah 9:9 - Palm Sunday prophesied

Happy new year! As we move past the Christmas season and head towards lent, here is a prophecy for Palm Sunday in Zechariah 9:9:

The coming of Zion’s king
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The King of Kings stickers on this page are from the Illustrated Faith advent kit - they're actually one card piece that I cut to fit my bible page. On the back of the card was this verse, and when I read it I had an image jump into my head of a small donkey looking out of the page at me.

I always think Palm Sunday is a perfect continuation of Christmas. Jesus had a humble beginning on Earth in the manger, and when He came as king He chose to use not just a regular donkey, but a young donkey. The humblest of the humble.

I found the image on Google and drew him in in watercolour/Inktense pencils, then used a black Micron pen and white gel pen to add details.

Psalm 19 - The heavens declare the glory of the Lord

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day the pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his race. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.

 - Psalm 19:1-6

This page is my attempt at the magnificence of the heavens in Inktense pencils, black Pitt artist pen and white gel pen. I love this passage as I love astronomy, and so many times I've looked through my binoculars and just thought "wow, God!"

Journaling through Jonah

I had a lot of fun journaling through Jonah. This is a story that I believe every Christian knows well, but it's good to read through the well-known stories again every now and then, because you forget the details, and you can always get more our of a story, no matter how well you know it.

Jonah 1&2 - God answers prayers

For the giant fish I didn't want to draw a whale, I wanted something really scary. I did a web search for prehistoric fish and came up with this monster. The page, as usual, is watercolour pencils, black Micron pen and a while gel pen.

Jonah 3&4 - Our God is abounding in love

I am not a Bible journalist...

Something's been bugging me for a while and I want to get it off my chest. The term "Bible journalist" really grates with me.

I am a journalist - I trained in journalism. I can collect facts and wrote them down for other people to read in a general impersonal way. Journalism is impersonal, but when I journal in my Bible it's very very personal. What I do in my Bible isn't journalism, it's journalling, so I'm a Bible journaller.

Haggai 2:8-9 & Joshua 24:15 - Praying for Glencoe

“The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord Almighty. “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,” says the Lord Almighty. “And in this place I will grant peace,” declares the Lord Almighty.’

 - Haggai 2:8-9

Over the last few years I've been regularly visiting Glencoe Outdoor Centre in Scotland - a Christian outward bound-type activity centre. My husband worked there many years ago and has said it's somewhere he wouldn't mind working again, and we got engaged on a visit there in 2013, so it's a special place for both of us.

This week we received an email update from the centre asking for urgent prayer, as a major source of gift income, received since 2011, will cease in the next three months. This gift income has averaged just over £30,000 annually over the past 4 years and its loss appears to make the centre no longer financially viable.  

I journalled this page as I was thinking and praying about the future of the centre as part of a 25 hour prayer day organised by the staff. The verse from Haggai was one of four included in the email, and was the one that jumped out at me the most. The other verse, from Joshua, is one that I've always associated with the centre, and I believe is written underneath a picture of the cente which hangs in its hallway.

The work the centre does with children in particular is wonderful, and it's the only centre that I know of that combines outdoor activities with faith content (although I'm sure there are others). I am praying that God will provide the finances for the centre to continue, the wisdom of the leaders there to know how best to steward the money they get in and whether they need to change the way they do some things in order to be more financially viable, and if the centre does close (although I really hope this won't happen) that God will send along someone with similar aims to continue to work there.

The image I journalled is of the centre itself in watercolour pencils. The green text at the side simply reads 'Lord, please bless Glencoe Outdoor Centre'. The washi tape at the bottom seemed appropriate - Trust in Him - Rejoice in the Lord - God is good.

Mark 5:21-43 - Jesus heals the bleeding woman

A large crowd followed and pressed round him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He turned round in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’
‘You see the people crowding against you,’ his disciples answered, ‘and yet you can ask, “Who touched me?”’
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’

 - Mark 5:24b-34

I used my own hand as the model for the picture. I could have copied images from the internet, but I wanted to make this personal. I need healing from certain things just as much as that woman did, so I need to reach out to Jesus too.

Other pictures I've seen of this verse show the woman holding on to Jesus' robe, but the passage doesn't say she grabbed Him, just that she touched the edge of His clothes. I imagine that the crowd was so busy that she couldn't get close enough to grab hold of anything. Her faith was so strong that she didn't feel she needed to get any closer than just a touch to be healed.

Digressing slightly, there is a danger of reading this passage and falling into the trap of thinking that anyone will be healed if their faith is strong enough, or conversely, that people who aren't healed don't believe enough. I think this is a dangerous theology to hold. Sometimes people aren't healed for reasons that God only knows. Sometimes this can lead to much greater things - look at the ministry of Joni Eareckson Tada if you want an example of this. (An excellent interview with Joni is here - I highly recommend reading it.)

In the margin of the Bible page I picked out some key phrases from the passage and wrote them out, underlining them in the text as well.

I used my watercolour pencils for the image, and the lettering was done with Pitt Artist pens.