I’ve added some additional previews of the “Victorian Rose Hearts” digital clip art kit and paper pack.  You can find it here in the store:  LINK TO VICTORIAN ROSE HEARTS,  LINK TO VICTORIAN ROSE HEARTS PAPER PACK.

I expanded the contest to include from the 16th of December until today since I’ve only managed to post once this month so far!  The winner is the 36th comment on this blog post:  LINK TO POST HERE

Congratulations to the winner!  And a giant thanks to Lambie, who took up the mantle DebD left behind to remind me it was the day for the drawing.  I’m thinking of the song “We get by with a little help from our friends!” right now.

I hope, hope, hope to be able to post another kit next week and start writing more frequently.  My fabric line files are supposed to ship out today and then I can start breathing a little again.  However, my new agents are wonderfully demanding and are going to keep me very busy.  I like being busy so that’s a good thing :-)!

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: Mark 4:13-20   Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?  The farmer sows the word.  Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.  Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.  Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;  but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.  Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop-thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”   NIV

DEVOTIONAL:  How do you deal with disappointment?

I’ve walked with the Lord now for about 47 years (since the age of 3 1/2).  In that time I’ve watched a lot of people get very excited about their faith — some go on to continue growing and maturing and others fall away over time.  The single most common thread that winds through the stories of those that have fallen away seems to be disappointment.  Especially disappointment with God.

“I prayed and God didn’t do what I asked.”  “I gave my life to God and he didn’t give me my life’s dream.”  “I sought God and yet my husband left me — God didn’t save my marriage.”  God doesn’t do what I think He should, because He’s God and I’m not!  It’s a hard lesson to learn, but God sees things very differently than we do.

One of the most important lessons we can learn is to continue trusting God, ESPECIALLY when things don’t go as we hoped or planned.  Every single one of us will face disappointment in our lives.  How we face it makes all the difference of whether we get bitter or better.

When my hopes and dreams seem to lie crushed at my feet, I turn my face up to God and tell Him, “No matter what Lord, I trust you.  I want your best plan in my life.  I don’t understand and I can’t pretend to think that I can think like you think, but I trust you to take this that seems so awful and bring good out of it somehow, someway.”  And fortunately, I have learned that every single time in my life that I’ve faced great disappointment, God has used it to deepen my faith and grow my character.  I sure don’t like “going there” but I love what God has done in me through the experience.  I have to continually remind myself that the 30, 60 and 100 fold fruitfulness comes out of a life that is led fully submitted to God and resting in His wisdom, His will and His plans — not my own.

PRAYER:  Lord, it is so easy to assume what the “right” answer is when I ask you for something in prayer.  Then it is so easy for me to get deeply disappointed when you don’t give me the answer that I wanted.  Help me to overcome disappointment and continue growing in my faith.  Help me to trust when the world seems upside down.  Help me to see as You see.   I want my life to produce 100 fold fruitfulness, help me to let you do the work in me that is necessary to produce it.