Mississippi McGyver

And we KNOW that in ALL things God
works for the good of those who love
him, who have been called according
to his PURPOSE. Romans 8:28

To me there are 3 very interesting words in this passage. Know, All, and Purpose.

KNOW. I love that it says that we know. Not that we wish, we hope, or we think. To me it is so comforting that I can know that God is working things for my good even when I don’t see how. I love the saying “I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow.”

ALL. The word All in it’s very nature is inclusive. It is the good AND the bad. The big things AND the little things. It is easy to see how God can use good things to work for good, but harder, if not impossible to see how he used bad things to work for good. Sometimes God gives us a glimpse of how he used something bad to work out for our good and then there are other times that I believe we will have to wait until Heaven to see the big picture. One of the times I was able to see His working things for my good started 16 years ago. I was 3 months into the pregnancy when Nikki died. I was devastated. My baby dying, to me, was a very bad thing. How could God use this for good? I was then blessed about 2 months later by being pregnant again with my son Joshua. Joshua is now 15 years old. He is a wonderful young man who loves Christ, and is one of my biggest blessings.

PURPOSE. To me suffering is a little easier to bear when there is a purpose behind it. I hate to run or exercise, but I will “suffer” running because I know the purpose is that by exercising I’ll be healthier.

When my life is going out of control this is the verse I go to for hope and strength to continue. It is my anchor verse. The past 6 years have been extremely difficult for my family. My husband and I have been running a small trucking company and truck repair company. We have had a lot of losses. We had a tornado take one of our farm buildings (insurance did not cover it.) We had our shop tools stolen (insurance did not cover it).We had lightning damage to our home appliances (insurance did not cover it).The economy and especially the high fuel cost have affected us greatly. Every week for the past several years, I have been sure that “This week is the last week we will be in business.” But every week God has seen us through. I have enjoyed working with my husband, who sees this business as his ministry opportunity. Every year we help with Operation Christmas Child. We truck the boxes from our location to the drop off area. That is just one of the many ministries we have supported. My husband also sees it as a ministry because he can provide jobs that affect about 30 families, and that we have the opportunity to show Jesus to them. The employees are like family to us and this last week “our family” was hit hard. Because of serious life threatening health issues we lost 6 drivers. We only had 12 to begin with. We have very hard decisions to make in the next couple of days. With all this happening, I am comforted by KNOWING that my God is still in control; that these problems fall into the category of ALL things; and that my God has a PURPOSE.

A piece of white cardstock rests comfortably in a drawer. Sometimes it can be a little boring, and sometimes friends move out and he is sad but for the most part, life is good. Then one day the creator takes him out of the drawer. He is confused. Before he knows it, he is cut, punched, pierced, heated to high temperatures. Why is this happening to him? How can these things work for his good? He is put in an embossing folder and rolled through a machine. He is marked, stamped, painted, colored, sewn and glued. When the creator is done what started as a plain piece of cardstock is now a card. The creator takes a picture of the card and posts it to her blog. Her friends leave comments. The creator knew that ALL the things (that includes all the “painful” things that were done to the cardstock… piercing, cutting, punching…) were going to make that plain piece of cardstock it into a beautiful card.

Our wonderful sponsor this week for STAMPIN' SISTERS IN CHRIST is

CLEAR DOLLAR STAMPS They have offered $15 in clear stamps.

My challenge for this week for the Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challege was to make a card that didn't use designer paper.

I challenged myself ever further to make a card that started just as a piece of white cardstock. This card has 3 layers. The base is white cardstock. The second layer is white cardstock that I took a green marker to and then embossed using my dotted swiss embossing folder. The top layer was white cardstock that I stamped green flourishes using green ink and

Layers of Color CREATIVE FLOURISH clear art stamp

I then ink-spray-smashed the white cardstock with markers and when it was dry ran it through the cuttlebug using the script embossing folder. The Iris was was stamped on white cardstock that I ink-spray-smashed using purple and blue markers. The iris is from a

Mark's Finest Papers set called BEARDED IRIS.

I then cut the iris out and used the paper tole technique to add layers to it. I punched out the lace using my SU border punch. I added a thin strip of white cardstock that I colored with my green marker to match the green layer. I also used that green marker to outline the sentiment square.

Check out what my Stampin' Sisters in Christ have created.

Chris

Grace

Kris

Linda

Lisa

Miesje

Pegggysue

Rebekka

Sabrina