I have two devotional coloring books that I alternate during the year. One is a winter devotional called "Cozy Moments to Calm Your Heart" and the other is a devotional on the book of Psalms called "Bless the Lord, Oh, My Soul" which I use during the spring and summer months.
Today's post features the pages I finished this winter from the book "Cozy Moments to Calm Your Heart". I still have not completed all the pages in the book, so I will pick this devotional up again in the fall.
Each page comes with a short devotional and prayer and a page to color. I read the devotional and scripture and pray and mediate as I color. I purchased this book from Dayspring but I'm not sure if it's available anymore.
My next page shares how we shouldn't worry about anything but pray about everything. Hard to do, isn't it? I tend to not want to pray, because if I pray it brings to mind the things I don't want to think about and therefore worry about. Silly isn't it? But when I start praying about them, I start worrying about them so I'd rather just put them completely out of my mind and not think/pray about them at all. Does anyone else feel this way? But the Bible tells us not to do that. It tells us to pray about everything and then leave it there. But leaving it there is so hard to do!
Psalm 91 was the verse I clung to all the years of Covid. I have a message board sitting on my desk and I had that verse on it for four years. I finally took it down and replaced it with Psalm 17 because of something else I am going through now. But Psalm 91 got me through the Covid time period and all the crazy things that happened during that awful time. God was my shelter and I curled up under His mighty wings.
This devotional is a reminder for us to be kind. I recently was hurt so brutally by a relative(s) and I'm still struggling to get over it. He said the most unkind words to me. It's really hard getting over cruel words from anyone, especially a relative, and to top it off a relative in Christian ministry. I've done all I can to repair that relationship from my end, but I keep praying for him (them). I was kind to him, when he was cruel to me. All I have left is to let go and let God take it from here.
I love how Colossians says to "PRACTICE tenderhearted mercy and kindness". That means, "on-going", "never stopping". It is so hard to be kind when others are cruel, that's why we have to "practice" doing it. I've been learning so much about GRACE lately; what is grace, how you give grace. My husband said months ago he wished everyone in his family would have just given everyone a little grace. They jumped to conclusions that were completely unfounded and untrue. If only they would have assumed the best instead of the worst. If only they would have just picked up the phone and talked instead of assuming something that wasn't true. If only they would have given some grace.
Grace and Love go hand in hand. If we love people, we give them grace. We think the best of them. We do what is right by them. We care for them. We love them as we love ourselves.
When people hurt me, I tend to want to avoid them because I want to protect myself and not be hurt again. Interesting that 2 Timothy tells us not to be afraid of people, but to "be wise and strong, and to love them and enjoy being with them". I love the verse "strong" in there. It takes strength to be around someone that has hurt you in the past. To "be wise" is also interesting, often we can get past the hurt if we try to understand why the person said or did what they did and pray for them.
In addition to my devotionals I do each day, I also started a new coloring bible. I completely finished my Inspire Bible, so I ordered a new Bible called Inspire Prayer. My, this is a BEAUTIFUL Bible. I will show more pages as the years go on, but trust me, this Bible is filled with gorgeous illustrations.
I'm working on a Bible study on Love so I started in 1 John. I loved my new Bible so much, I wanted to be very careful with it so I decided to color it with colored pencils instead of markers or gel pens, and would you believe it got ruined right away anyway? I was so upset I wanted to cry. Yes, apparently even colored pencils smudge and bleed. Lesson learned, keep a heavy piece of card stock in-between the pages for a LONG TIME after coloring. I really did have the hindsight to use card stock between the pages, but I think I removed them too soon. So please ignore my smudges.
Each chapter begins with two illustrations: a big one on the opposite side of the chapter and a smaller one on the chapter page.
My Bible Study uses the "Berean" method which I really don't like at all. They have you mark and underline so much that by the time you're done you can't even read the text anymore. There is so much marked there is hardly anything unmarked. So I decided after one page, that I wasn't going to mark my Bible up like they say anymore.
This page really shows the smudging; I tried to erase it, but it didn't help much. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
And here you can see, that even when you use pencil it still bleeds through the other side. Ugh, it's so frustrating. Anyway, I also wanted to point out that because this is a prayer Bible they always leave spots open like this so you can write a personal prayer too.
Here is finally a page I didn't ruin 😃. Hopefully I can keep this up from now on. I always say Bible Journaling is so much harder than card making because if you mess up a card you just rip it up and start again, but you can't do that with a Bible. I have discovered craft paint helps but I don't want to use that too often as it makes your Bible really thick and sometimes warps the pages. Painting the page with Gesso before you color also helps prevent bleeding on the opposite page, but again, it makes the pages thicker and warps slightly.
I hope you enjoyed my Bible Journaling and Devotional Coloring Pages and have been inspired by God's Word today!
Have A Great Day! Amy
Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!
For more posts on the "Cozy Moments to Calm Your Heart" Devotional Coloring Book, see these posts:
