“You are an artist by design” Emily Freeman

On Saturday night at Allume we had our last dinner/speaker/worship time.  Emily Freeman was speaking about the artist in each of us.  She has written a new book called ” A Million Little Ways“.

She encouraged us to see the art in us – the beauty of the art that God created around us. It is everywhere. Can we see it?

She said “Art is moving toward what makes you come alive.”

For some of us that is writing, maybe singing or painting.

What makes you come alive?

Find that thing and pursue it!!

After dinner we went into a time of worship. And can I tell you it was the most moving experience I have ever been a part of.

The music was amazing and I could feel God’s presence in the room. We were celebrating Him!!

But then they also had these women come in that were painters. Each artist had been praying over what they might paint and then the canvases were given away in a random drawing. Mel actually won one and it is an amazing story – seriously I can’t wait until she posts it because it still gives me chills!!

As part of the decorations they had these little blank canvases and some water color paints and colored pencils.  They encouraged us to create art as we felt led.

And so in between standing up and singing and watching the artists create their pieces, I sat down and painted one of my own.

Let me tell you it was NOT easy painting with the tiny brushes we were given and the watercolors…but the music was inspiring and the picture at the top of my post is what I ended up with!

I couldn’t believe it!

It was such a cool experience to feel inspired and creative in that way! I am not sure that I can recreate that environment – but I want to try this painting thing again. I really enjoyed it!!

Yesterday my Elijah asked if I could just stay home with him and his brothers after school and not go back to work.  I asked why and he said he wanted to spend time alone with me. 🙁

When I asked him what he would want to do if we could spend some time together and he said “Paint”!

So this afternoon I stopped out at Walmart and picked up some small canvases, some brushes and a few paints and tomorrow we are going to do art together.

And I will probably crank up the music just a little while we are at it. 😉

What is something that makes you come alive? I encourage you to spend a little time this weekend discovering what that might be!

Allume 2013 is over.

Yesterday I felt a little lost, not having worship time with breakfast, lunch and dinner! What an amazing experience the past 5 days has been.  I went in to this hoping for community and what I found was so much more.

I was worried, just a little, that these God Sized Dream women I had grown to love over the past nine months might not be what I “expected”. What I found was that they were more gracious, more funny, more giving than I had hoped and I was filled with blessings time and time again.

Having the opportunity to do life with them for even a few days has filled my soul to overflowing!

People have asked what it was like, what did I learn? And I have needed to really process everything the past few days. There was so much and I will probably write several posts about what the speakers had to share specifically – I hope you stick around with me for those!!

But the one word that has been turning in my head from this weekend is GIVE.

I believe that God calls us to give. Give to others of our time, our love, our resources. I can hold on to these things so tightly and can be unwilling to share all the blessings God has poured out on me – but He doesn’t call us to be selfish – He calls us to be selfless and generous.

I believe that this is an area that He will be challenging me in the coming days.

We met with and heard from several organizations that work with the needy. It is my plan to feature one of these groups each month.  I believe strongly that it takes very little of my money, time etc., to make a HUGE impact on the lives of the hurting. I feel called to share these with you because it is possible that you, like me, have not heard of several of them.

And If you know of a group or organization that I might feature please email me and we can talk details!!

One of the best parts of the weekend was participating in an impact opportunity. We each chose a group to work with and did different projects. I worked with Sole Hope and I will be posting about them soon. They are amazing and are impacting the lives of so many little children and it is so easy to get involved!! I am hoping to take this to our churches youth group as well!

Giving can be hard.

It means that we have to let go of some of the comforts we have so that we can help change the world. But by giving we CAN make a change.

We have a voice here in the online community. God calls us to use our voices and be a light. The dark places here seem vast and overwhelming – but together, one step at a time, we can share hope to the lost.

Will you join me?

Seek out what God’s calling is in your life – what area He may be calling you to give. Maybe it is the gift of encouragement, maybe you have seen financial success and have excess to share, maybe you have someone in your life you need to forgive and you are ready to give that gift to yourself.

Seek Him.

Be generous.

Give of yourself and I promise that the what you receive in return will life changing!!

And to the women of the GSD team, you gave to me more than I can say. I laughed more than I have in years, I was loved and blessed by each of you and I am humbled by your grace. Thank you to each of you for being so generous with me.

And to the Allume team – WOW. Seriously WOW. As a “newbie” I walked away changed. I know less about how to self promote and more about how to live for God than I thought I would gain from coming. And I am so very glad. This weekend was a game changer for me and I am working to figure it all out I am thanking God for each of you that followed God’s vision for this weekend.

To God be the glory!!