Rest | The Riches of His Love

In honor of her upcoming book, I am joining Jessica Turner today for Fringe Friday. Sharing fun ways that we spend our fringe hours.

I had seen the idea on Instagram. My friend Logan had created a fun abstract art project for her kids to work on and I was inspired. I showed a picture of it to Elijah and he said that he wanted to do it too.

So one evening I ran over to our local Wal-mart and grabbed some new paints and some 11×17 blank canvases. A 2-pack for $6.97 seemed like a steal, so I grabbed 2 packs, a couple of rolls of painters tape and some new brushes and started dreaming up ideas of what we would do.

I will be honest the supplies sat untouched for several weeks. It is hard for me to take time for things like this. My kids love it and are asking me to let them paint all the time. I tend to get too stressed out about the potential messes and the fun quickly loses its appeal.

But I am learning that I need to take time for myself (and my kids) for fun projects. And I love painting, although I don’t have a lot of natural talent. So after dinner one evening I asked the kids if they wanted to paint.

Excited to get started, we pulled everything out. The idea was to use painters tape and tape off patterns on the canvas and paint around the tape. When it is dry you pull the tape off and the colors pop!

I did the taping, but let the kids tell me where and how to position it. I wanted these to be their projects – not mine! And then I let them choose their colors and set them to painting!

It really was a lot of fun watching them explore their creative side. Continually praising their work, they beamed with pride over their creations. We were all anxious for the next morning when we could take the tape off the dried canvases!

The first thing we did in the morning was remove the tape and wow, what beautiful pieces of art we had!

They are now all proudly displayed in their rooms.

Sometimes my fringe hours are spent encouraging the creative side of my littles. (<====Click to Tweet) And while there was commotion and mess and a little bit of crazy going on during that time, I have memories of fun and laughter and pride over their work.

It was worth every minute.

I forget this all too often. That I need to be willing to make a mess, and to show my kids that I am not going to be stressed over it so that I can enjoy some quality time with them!

And the look on Elijah’s face the following morning as he held his art, perfection.

And after they were all off in bed, I took some time and did some quiet painting of my own and came up with this….

My heart has been focused on community lately, and dreaming of that turquoise table this spring…I thought this painting captured that well.

I don’t always do a good job of enjoying and utilizing my fringe hours, but when I do…what a blessing it is.

What do you like to do in your fringe hours?

My word for 2014 is Balance.

The last several months of 2013 were a blur. Dominic and I were so busy at the office that there were times I wondered if we would make it. Now don’t get me wrong, we are blessed and grateful for this business and how God has provided for our family, but I felt very flustered for too long. I needed balance.

I thought that if my one word could be balance that I might be more intentional about finding it.

I can tell you that it has been, and continues to be, a work in progress.

I suppose I hoped that by mid-way through a year I would have been further along, but the reality is that life just happens and I allow myself to get swept up in the wave of it all.

Then one day I got an email from Bonnie Gray asking if I wanted to be a part of her new book launch team for “Finding Spiritual Whitespace – Awakening Your Soul to Rest“. Her book sounded like JUST what I needed because “rest” seemed so lacking in my daily life.

And by rest – I really don’t mean more time to sleep. While that would be nice, I have become so accustomed to sleeping WITH interruption for the last MANY years, that sleeping through the night seems unnatural to me!

No, what my spirit really needs is finding that rest IN God. In relationship with Him. (<====Click to Tweet)

“Making room for whitespace means taking the journey to confide in Jesus the way we would if he were standing right here in front of us.” pg 31

My hope is that during these times of busy, I would be intentional about seeking and finding God in the everyday. I don’t want my relationship with God to be one where I treat Him like my 1-800-CRISIS line. It HAS been that way in the past and I found that for many years I felt like God was my enemy because He just didn’t “fix” all of my problems.

Instead, I want to create a spirit of thankfulness in all situations. To find comfort in His promises despite what is happening in the world around me.

Rest

Recently I have done a few things to stay in a closer relationship with God. I have been spending a little time each morning in quiet time, reading the Bible, listening to praise music and praying over my husband and my family.

There are mornings when I am exhausted and don’t want to get up with my alarm. And on those mornings, I usually start my prayer time by thanking God for giving me the energy I need to get through the day, to do a short workout, and be awake and beneficial for my family.

A heart of thankfulness makes all the difference, doesn’t it?! (<====Click to Tweet)

Bonnie share her heart in this book. The deepest parts of the hurts from her past, a past that threatened to drown her once the details started coming to light.

And yet she also offers hope.

Hope that our past doesn’t have to define us. And a path to seeking and finding a loving God that wants us to find our rest IN Him.

I don’t want my life to be defined by how busy I was. I am thankful we are busy, but it can’t take the place of spending time seeking God’s plan for my life. Spending time in His Word, offering up prayers, even when they come from exhaustion, with thankfulness on my lips, and singing His praises are just a few things I am doing to find rest.

What areas of your life do you need to find rest?

Purchase a copy for yourself here!

Thank you Bonnie for allowing me to be a part of your amazing team of women seeking to find God, find peace and find rest.

Photo Credit: sherbonbon

The Riches of His Love

Category Archives: Rest

Getting Our Paint On – #TheFringeHours

A Time for Rest – Finding Spiritual Whitespace