A Little Grace Comes to Tizzy Town

One night I could not sleep and as I lay in the bed praying...a childrens book began to dance around in my head. It followed a rhyming pattern and as it unfolded on the landscape of my mind...sleep began to overtake me. Nearing that much desired dream land, I a hoped and prayed that I would be able to remember the whimsical tale and I locked the title in mind, "Tizzy Town". The next day, I went on a search for the perfect journal...I settled on a beautiful hot pink journal. This was going to hold my dancing thoughts and the story that was still fresh in my mind. I opened the crisp new book and wrote the title "Tizzy Town", 2004. At this point...my time was up and we needed to be somewhere else, so I closed my new journal and thought that I would write the story later.

I had thought for a very long time, that I would like to write a story for children, but was not confident that I could pull it off. I found my time was consumed with my family and taking care of other children along the way and at the end of the day...I was tired. Although, along the way...I would occasionally allow my creative self to come out and play.  I enjoyed decorative painting on ornaments, wood, purses and even painted some murals. I also would do prophetic painting during worship services on canvas. If you are not familiar with prophetic painting, it is simply a form of worship, painting what God has placed upon your heart. Most of the time it will be accompanied by scripture, giving you a visual of what that scripture is speaking or what you feel the Lord is speaking at that time. As time went on, the vision for my book was vaguely in my mind. I felt that I had lost most of the story, by not writing it down immediately. In fact...I let years slip past, before I felt the tugging at my heart to write again.

This tugging seemed to be getting stronger. I was not sure that I would be able to recall the book that had first danced across my mind. One evening I was watching a show on the internet called "It's Supernatural", the guest on this broadcast, captured my attention. Her name is Roberta Simpson and she was...at the time seventy five years old. As her story unfolded...hope began to arise in my heart. While driving her car one day...the Lord spoke to her to write a childrens book. Amazingly, she went home that day and began to write. She has now published, "Nana's Bible Stories". A wonderful book presenting bible stories in a fresh light for children. I began to think...if God can use a beautiful seventy five year old lady, to write books to honor Him...why couldn't He use me? I pondered this for a about a week and one night...while I was up alone and the house was all quiet...I said, "Here I am Lord, if you will give me back the story that you gave me years ago, right now...I will write it." I sat in front of my computer and the words began to flow onto the page. I wrote the book in a few hours and the next day I spent time tweaking it. I was utterly amazed that I was able to write a heart touching story in rhyme. My excitement began to grow and then...as time went on...and life took over again, my story, "Grace Comes to Tizzy Town", took a back seat. Although, during this time...I continued to write and even wrote another book in the Tizzy Town series and began a novel for tweens and teens.

Looking back...I can see that fear was holding me back. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of rejection, all of these combined were the force that held me captive and immobilized me from moving forward. I began to think about my book more and it began to stir in my heart again. I prayed for God to help me move forward and He being God, knows just what we need. He sent a precious friend, that I had not seen or spoken to since high school, back into my life and she was a great encouragement to me. I will forever be grateful for this wonderful friendship! I can't thank you enough, Gini W. H. for your encouragement for me...to step out. I even told her that I wanted to buy some books to help me, and she so graciously offered to allow me to borrow the books that she had used, to send off her own story for publication. She was truly sent into my life to get me on track. She is an angel sent from heaven!

Isn't God amazing! When I determined to go along with His plan...He began to send the people and resources I needed to accomplish my goal. I became increasingly aware, that I could not continue to write, paint and be able to do my own illustrations. It would just be too time consuming for me...I prayed about an illustrator and God sent a very talented young man, Tony Whitten to do the illustrations. He read the story and it resonated with him and he agreed to lend his talent to see my book get published. I had a specific look and feel for the illustrations that I was going for and we worked together on the design and sketches. Now, Tony has done an amazing job, bringing the story to life.

This is one of the almost finished illustrations for my book. I love the whimsical feel of it.

I am still on a grand adventure to see my story go to print...and I know that God has a plan. I will continue to move forward and trust the Lord for the rest. I am so thankful to God for giving me...a little grace...with Tizzy Town. I look forward to seeing "Grace Comes to Tizzy Town", in the homes of people, being read to children and encouraging their faith.

A Filtered Heart

I'm sure you have heard the old expression "looking at the world through rose colored glasses". Well, last night I was pondering this and I had a new thought about looking at the world. We all know that a filter cleanses the impurities out of what ever it is being used for, such as an air filter causes the air to be cleaner or a water filter causes the water to be purified. Have you ever considered that Jesus is the filter over our heart? He comes in and cleanses us, caps off our heart and filters what comes through it. When we see the world through that filtered heart, washed white as snow, it changes our perspective. If we allow that filter to do it's work to purify our life...we will no longer walk in judgment of others, we will walk in love. When people do us wrong, we can remember the wrongs that we ourselves have committed and the forgiveness that we received from our Father in heaven. We will not try to take punishment into our own hands. Through that filter of love, our hearts will be moved to pray for those who are against us. Out of that filtered heart we will love passionately, care deeply, share abundantly and consider others before ourselves.

My status on face book yesterday was, "If you want to move the heart of God...move your heart closer to God."  The closer we are to God the better the filter works. If we want to see the power of God released in the earth and walk in what Jesus himself, said we could walk in, then we must pray with our whole heart, "…The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16). When we pray prayers that are not filled with faith and if we are holding things in our hearts against others, then our filter is clogged. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). The good news is...it only takes a minute to clean the filter. The Lord is full of loving favor and pity, slow to anger and great in loving-kindness. (Psalm 145:8)

Looking through rose colored glasses is not a bad thing to do...it simply means to see the world as a better place or being optimistic and hoping for the best. A filtered heart, is faith in action and looking through this filter of Love, will enable us...not to just hope for a better world...but to be a light in this world. I hope we can share in seeing the world, through a Christ filtered heart.

Daughter Day=Sunshine

Today was a wonderful day. Sometimes you have to just toss your plans aside and be available to spend time with family or friends. This was one of those days. I got to spend much of the day with my sweet daughter. I so enjoy the time that we spend together. She is all grown up now and making her way on her own. Our times together are not as abundant as they once were, with her work schedule and mine combined. The time that we have is precious and I love every minute of it.
No matter how old she or I gets to be...she will always be my sunshine. My daughter is a bright spot in my life...whether I see her often or not. She is in my constant thoughts and prayers. I thank God for the privilege of raising such and awesome person. I guess...until she has children of her own...she will not understand the place that she holds in my heart. I am so thankful for the time we shared together today. I thank God for this daughter day and for sending me my Sunshine.

His eye is on the sparrow

This has been a peaceful and relaxing Sunday afternoon. I have thoroughly enjoyed the time of solitude. The evening is winding down and I am becoming aware of little worries trying to creep into my mind and steel my joy and peace. I resolved that there will not be any cracks in my thinking to allow worry or doubt a place to rest. All we can do is set our eyes on the prize. Doing our best to accomplish the things that we can and not worry about the things that we can not do.

Scripture tells us that worry does not add anything to our life. We all know that worry can take many things away from us, and even has the power to add things that we do not want. Worry distracts from our time and engages our emotions. Leaving us drained and depressed. Worry also adds stress to our lives which aids in illness. Worry can even give us those dreaded wrinkles. In short...worry has a whole lot of baggage. So since it carries so much baggage...I'm insisting that it take a staycation...far away from me. lol Since it is going to a land far, far away...I insist that doubt go right along with it. They do enjoy each others company so much.

I'm going to rest in knowing that God's eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches over me. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." (Mat 10:29-31)