His Eye is on the Sparrow Mixed Media Painting

Yeah I know... you never knew I could paint? Well I don't usually show it, but I must be getting brave in my old age! This is a mixed media piece, made with tons and tons of flowers (from the Dollar Tree), paint, cardboard, and gesso. And a bird. And a nest.

I did some journaling on the piece, but painted over it since it is going to hang at the church. We have a new building with many bare walls.

Here you go:

Well - was trying to show you close-ups! Lol. Anyway you get the idea.

Author Interview with Tanya Logan: Come Back to Jesus - and Don't Bring Your Blackberry

My author interview HERE - so exciting!!

God's Name is Father

Does anyone have trouble referring to God as "father"? I did a little survey recently based on this question. I mostly found that people who are close with their own father, the earthly father, are able to relate to a heavenly father in a good way. They pray with a feeling of familiarity, a closeness.

But those who are less close to their earthly father have a hard time referring to God as father.They pray to someone distant.

And then there are those who take it way too far, calling him "the Man upstairs" or other familiar names. To me, this lacks completely and reverence and isn't how we are supposed to address him.

So here's my question to you. How do you personally make sense of the awesomeness of God when there is the ability to have such intimacy with him at the same time? How do you strike the balance without being irreverent?

Hint: This is part of my next book!

And thinking of "Our Father" reminded me of the Don Moen song, so here it is for you to enjoy. Don't forget to leave a comment below!

How We Approach God

Do we approach God from a beggar's perspective or as His cherished child? If we have any difficulty seeing Him as our loving Father, we need to ask Him to help us develop a healthy Father/child relationship. ~ David Jeremiah

It's Decision Time, having trouble?

Do you have trouble making decisions? Whether big decisions or smaller ones, God wants to be a part of every choice you make. Do the little ones matter to Him? YES they do!

Every decision we make, large or small, has the potential to move us closer to God or further away. Rarely do we remain static. So .... when trying to discern His will, what do you do?

Watch the video for some answers. Verses are listed below that are mentioned in the video (I forgot to embed them on the screen!). The whole list is a good set of references for times when you're trying to decide anything at all. :)



Verses, reading mostly from NIV:
Psalm 91
Proverbs 3:5,6
2 Chronicles 15
Isaiah 12:6
Jeremiah 33:3
Hebrews 11:8
James 1:5
Isaiah 30:21

One Song's ability to Affect lives

For some reason today I was thinking about a time when I was Music Director at Elizabeth Chapel UMC. It's been a few years ago now. I absolutely loved that church and its members.

One day we were warming up to sing the anthem, when I looked up at my choir. All their faces were strained, and their sound was...not good. It was my fault; I had given them something to learn that was beyond their ability, and then misjudged how quickly we could prepare it. I slammed my book shut.

"Would you guys like to sing something else today?" I asked.

Heads nodded, some ashamed, some relieved. All in agreement.

A quick prayer, then "How Great Thou Art?" I suggested.

So that's what we sang. Now, this song has affected nearly every listener who's ever heard it since it came out in its current version in the 1950s. It was particularly effective at Elizabeth Chapel, because while facing the choir I stood at the foot of a huge stained glass depiction of Jesus. Literally--at his feet.

Interestingly, during the song I felt the sudden wind of the Holy Spirit come onto the choir. Their voices were audibly different, stronger, almost as if there were more of them. My hands shook so hard I could barely direct. Afterward, many members came forth to tell us how moved they were by the song.

That was God moving among the congregation that day. I'm so thankful He gave us, you and me, music that we can love and enjoy and allow Him to use to break through to our oft-hardened hearts.

Here is a great video of Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood performing How Great Thou Art. If you aren't covered in goosebumps by the end, I'd like to know why! :-)

Whatever happened to the "H" in deity?

So, my Bible Study is with an editor. (Yay!) A real, live person who is finding all my mistakes and showing me girl, you might have been writing for that past 7 years, but you don't know how to write.

Ahem.

Yeah ok, I usually have editors for that kind of thing. I had to laugh when I was researching editors (I finally picked one I knew, and who I knew had experience with Christian writing so she would speak the lingo). Anyway there was a suggestion someplace that you check out the potential editors for your manuscript at preditors & editors, that you check their references, that you make sure the person you talk to is really the one who will do the work and has a resume you can see. This is all very good advice. The final suggestion was this:

Take an English class.

Well. If I haven't learned it by now (I created my first "book" in the 3rd grade, complete with a hard cover held together by yarn) I am probably not going to learn a whole lot in yet another English class. Not to mention that I've been repeating my mistakes for lo these many years. Also not to mention that there's no way that in the next month I'm going to stop making them, English class or no. I'll just shell out the bucks for an editor.

So back to the title of this post. My editor asked whether I wanted deity pronouns (that's like "Him" or "His" when referring to God or Jesus) to be capitalized. I was taken aback. I thought that's what we did! I thought everybody knew to cap the deities. Not the false ones, but the 2 real ones.

Turns out, that's not even right. The writer's guidelines say not to capitalize. Furthermore, she said only TWO VERSIONS of the Bible use caps for those pronouns these days. Are you as shocked as I am? Did you know this?

Color me stupid. I thought you always capitalized them, out of reverence. That's what I've decided to do, and I'll put some sort of disclaimer [disclaimer! What a word to have to use] in the front explaining why MY God still has a capital H in His name.