journal – mamasbrush

The Importance of Bible Journaling

As Christians, most of us would agree that Bible reading is important…even if we don’t do it as often as we know we should. But for years, I didn’t understand the importance of Bible journaling.

This whole idea of Bible journaling has become popular in recent years and has come to mean different things. For some it’s art added to the margins of your Bibles, for others it’s a full page written about what you read each day. To be honest, I don’t have time for either of those and the weight of either leaves me doing nothing.

Years ago, my husband and I learned how to use “Reading Highlights” from Navigator’s 2:7 Bible discipleship course. With this system, we are encouraged to underline any verses in our daily reading (even just a chapter a day). Once the reading is done, we go back and look over anything we have marked, respond to them prayerfully, and pick one to write down.

But this post is supposed to be about the importance of Bible journaling, right? So why is it important?

I read a chapter in my Bible and talk to the Lord. I learn and I’m encouraged, but nothing sticks. It’s done until tomorrow when I do it all again. But when I take the time to choose a verse or two from my reading and to formulate my thoughts, even into a couple sentences, and put them on paper, I carry the lesson or encouragement further into my day. And when I want to remember during dinner to share with my family, it is easy to refer to my notes and pass that encouragement to others. Sometimes I end up choosing to memorize a verse or passage because of the time spent journaling, truly letting the “…Word of Christ dwell in [me] richly,” as Colossians 3:16 says!

Bible journaling is important because it is a tool to take the Word of God deeper into your heart and life. I had fallen out of this practice, but wanted to get back into it again. In doing so, I decided to make pretty journal pages for myself.

I’ve also listed them in my Etsy shop for any of you that are interested. Use them individually or print them front to back and bind them to make your own journal. I think I’ll put mine into a 3 ring binder, but you could take yours to a printer like Staples and have them bound. Perhaps I’ll do that someday, but I don’t get out much. 🙂

As always, I want you to have an opportunity to have them at a discount during their first week in my shop. Enter BIBLEJOURNAL33 as the coupon code for 33% off through the 22nd or use this link to have it taken automatically.

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You can find me gathering here.

February Art Journal Prompts – Week 3

I had a lot of fun with week three of the February Prompts from Awesome Alice. Let’s get to them…

Chocolate Chip Cookie in Watercolor — Prompt: Cookie

Watercolor Flowers - Journal Prompt — Prompt: Flowers

I did these flowers without a sketch. I just jumped in with the watercolors and added the lines later. I don’t do a lot of these, so they were outside my comfort zone a little. I could have done a simple flower (what I would normally do), but I wanted to use this opportunity to push myself. That is what this exercise is all about for me after all. 🙂

Forever and Ever - Hand lettered — Prompt: Forever and Ever

Oh My Darlin' Clemintine Hand lettered - Prompt: Darling — Prompt: Darling

My children keep asking if this is a peach. I’ll admit, it does have a bit of a peach look to it, but it’s totally a clementine. 🙂 The clementines we buy each winter are “Oh my Darlin'” Clementines, so I had to try this. Plus, it pushed me again. 🙂

Art Journal Prompt: Sweet Hearts — Prompt: Sweet hearts

Art Journal Prompt: you make me happy (hand lettered) — Prompt: You make me happy

Art Journal Prompt: My heart is yours — Prompt: My heart is yours

I actually really love this one, but I don’t love the way it turned out. I did some more working with it on paper after this was done and have come up with something I’m excited to debut in next Valentine’s printables., so if you like my stuff, you may want to subscribe so you don’t miss it. 🙂 (shameless plug)

Have you seen week one and week two?

Gathering here.

More Bullet Journal Pages for the Farm

***Updated June 2022: I have new garden harvest/journal pages available! Check out my post about them here, or hop over to my shop to find them!

I considered waiting until I have a complete finished collection of bullet journal pages to share all at once, but I realize that it may never happen. So… here are a few more. This is the cover page in my farm journal. I’m new to illustrating with markers, so I was afraid of tackling the radishes with them. Especially accomplishing the gradient, but I’m super happy with how it turned out. It’s crisp, clean, plenty of negative space, and yet some of that deliberate messy. It just makes me happy!

And yes, those are my kids markers. It doesn’t have to be fancy to be fun!

Brooder Log for Baby Chicks — My 10 year old assured me that water is NOT blue. When I stepped back to look at it, I decided she’s right. Oh well.

This page sits beside my Egg Tracker. It’s basically a brooder log. We purchased some chicks from Tractor Supply a week and a half ago to replenish our laying flock (some of our chickens are almost 4 years… that’s ancient for laying hens as far as productivity goes) and as soon as we can diy an incubator, we’ll be incubating some meat chickens. Hopefully we’ll do several batches this spring/summer. With all those babies and all the different start dates and ages and details, I wanted a way to organize it all. That said, we’ve never really done this before, so I don’t know what organizational method will be best, so I decided to start with a log. This one may just be for March, or it may spill over and I’ll just make new pages when I need them.

And this is the back half of my garden plan. It shows about 50 feet across by 25ish feet back. Hopefully I’ll have the front half and our property layout done for you soon so you can visualize everything a bit better. I left the plants in pencil, even though I really want to draw in each individual plant for a nice pretty garden illustration, but so many things could change and I have things so tightly packed together in permiculture/companion planting style, that I decided not to. One of my future pages will include a plant list with dates to know and remember, so you’ll see my plans more then.

I also included Hebrews 6:7, “For Land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing.” I know it is referencing our hearts, but I love the relation to gardening and the reminder of how God uses the every day of His creation to talk to our hearts.

You’ll also notice that my sketches from one side to the other are different. I did these up on graph paper weeks ago and apparently one of them is off. I decided not to redo them though. Who has time for that. Release the perfectionism and move on. I would not be doing a bullet journal at all if I was going to try to have a perfect one. I wouldn’t get anything done actually. Perfectionism is the enemy of accomplishment. That’s what I say anyway.

Gathering here.

A Garden Journal Entry from April

Here in the dead of winter, it’s kinda nice to be looking at this spread from last April! This was such a fun spread to do.

For the record… The asparagus did the best of the whole year. Last year was not good for gardening! A few more months and we get to try again.

13 years

13 years ago today, my husband and I were married. So, in honor of today, I’m sharing my visual journal entry from last year… when it was only 12 years.

I painted this from the 2 dozen red roses my sweet husband brought me for our anniversary. They commemorated the roses he bought me when he first told me he loved me. Isn’t he thoughtful!

A New Year’s Sermon

Update: Find the 2023 version with free printable here.

Last year, New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday. The sermon that morning was the best New Year’s messages I’ve ever heard. Instead of focusing on goals and plans and dreams for the coming year, our pastor talked about saying good-bye to 2016. Saying good-bye to all the failure and all the sin that we often carry around with us, despite our repentance. He reminded us that once we’ve asked God to forgive us, those sins and failures were nailed to the cross. That we shouldn’t be carrying them into the new year.

For Christmas, that year, I received a visual journal (a journal of watercolor paper) and his sermon inspired me with the perfect idea for the opening page. I put all the previous year’s guilt and shame on the cross where it belongs. It’s something I need to do every year. Actually, daily would be even better!

Original artwork done with watercolor and ink on the 140 pound cold pressed watercolor paper of a “visual journal”.

This post was submitted to the link-up at A Wise Woman Build’s Her Home.,