Word Art Wednesday: The Potter and the Clay

Welcome to this week's Word Art Wednesday challenge.  You are welcome to copy this beautifully rendered scripture (by Karen Murray of Papercraft Memories).  Karen has some beautiful scripture sets in my store and she sells some absolutely beautiful artwork in her Etsy store.

Isn't it beautiful.  She just has a way with fonts and I'm so glad she is a part of both Daydream Designs and Word Art Wednesday.

Come join us at Word Art Wednesday any time this week and link up your encouraging, family friendly creation to our challenge blog for the chance to win some great prizes from our sponsors. 

In planning my sample for this week, I decided to dig through some of my older rubber stamps and get my fingers in some actual ink!  Though I love the digi world, there is something very special about coming back to my very old (and big) stash of red rubber stamps.  Last week's sponsor for Word Art Wednesday was Our Daily Bread Designs, and the stamp I chose for this week's sample comes from ODBD too. I have quite a collection of their stamps and they are still some of my all time favorites.

My first go at my card actually turned out much more simple in design than I envisioned.

This is the version I sent to Karen L., WAW administrator to post on the website for this week.  As I looked at my card I just kept cringing that it was so simple.  I love all the fancy die cut mats I see so much of online, but I just never get to the point of actually investing in them.  Then when all I can mostly do is cut out things in squares, rectangles or a few shaped things I have I feel like my creations are substandard.

So I dug deeper into my embellies stashes and at least came up with this fun button that I thought echoed the pottery designs.  That spurred me to add the banner and that helped.  I think a good rule of thumb is just to keep adding more and more! LOL

Sometimes I feel like my creations are not even worthy to post, especially when I think of all the really talented people out there who produce literal works of art.   Then I remind myself...the fanciness of my cards doesn't matter.  More layers don't add more heart to a card of encouragement.  It's not the buttons and bows, bling or bang that convey what's in my heart.

We can even fall prey to the temptation to feel about ourselves like I've described I sometimes feel about my cards.  I don't particularly like my size or shape at this stage of my life; I used to look like that tall, thin piece of pottery in the background.  Now I'm more like the one on the front-left...a little rotundus!  I do actually have determination to do something about that TODAY.  I'm going back to the rec center after about a year and a half away from it. 

God has made us, created us in His image, 

and though while on this earth we may have to reside in jars of clay, 

that part which is really us, our spirit, our soul is designed to live eternally with God.   We have a treasure in these jars of clay...

 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”

 made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge 

of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power 

is from God and not from us.   

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; 

perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; 

struck down, but not destroyed.   

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,

 so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, 

so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.  

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

 2 Corinthians 4:7-12

I'm dying.  I'm not being morbid here.  It's true.  My body is aging, my hair is graying, my skin is sagging, my energy is waning.  I'm not who I was when I was 26 or 46 or 56.  Every year I can tell that my body is being given over to death a wee bit more than the year before.  The challenges of life weigh heavier on my shoulders and on my spirit.  I'm not as resilient as I used to be.  

But my faith in Christ is growing, my certainty in who God is is bigger now than ever before.  I feel the eternal gift of salvation welling in my soul and making me yearn for my heavenly days.  

God has molded me into His child.  He took this lump of sin, and bent and broke it until I confessed my need for Him.  The minute I trusted Him with the rest of this life, He started pressing and shaping me to ready me for eternal life.  His Light came into my spirit, and He has crafted the vessel He wanted so that light would shine in places He desired.  

I am His.  I learned quite some time ago not to try to shape my own life, but to just give in, yield to the Potter's hands and let Him make me into something beautiful.  If I were to design my own life, it would look as simple as my crude cards.  But in His hands, I will be crafted for perfection.  I can't wait for my big debut in heaven.  I'll cross over and I will finally be perfect to praise Him forever and ever....just as He designed me before I was even born.