Journaling the Bible

This is adapted from "Reading the Bible in a Twitter World", an amazing seminar I had the opportunity to attend as part of the National Youth Worker's Conference. These "notes" are for my HS Girls Bible Study Sisters, as a recap to help remind them of the ways to journal God's word in their quiet time. At the bottom of this post there are verses listed that you may want to start with journaling.

There are four ways (okay, WAY more than that -- but these are a good start) to journaling the Bible. It is my hope that as you start journaling that you:

• Learn more about God and His love
• Continue to make a habit to spend time in God's word and reflect on it
• Remember to bring your journal to Wednesday night Bible study :)  (and on Resurrection this weekend!!)
• Remember to start each session with a prayer -- it doesn't have to be long, you can even just say something short like "God, help me to understand Your word, crave Your word, and live your Word"

Without further adieu, below are four ways to journal your Bible :)

Start with a cute journal -- CHECK! And fun markers, pens, colored pencils, whatever. CHECK!

1. Journalistically - 

This is a two pager :) On the left page, write the verse exactly how it appears in your Bible, including where it is from. Then go back and place quotations, brackets, squigglies, whatever to draw attention to certain parts of a verse. 

On the RIGHT page, break down the verse. Write your thoughts about the words that your drew brackets around, deconstruct it, write the who,what,when,where,why,how?

Reflect through your writing. 

Or as I said tonight, write down your pretzel logic ideas :)

{click images to make them bigger} 

2. Doodle - my FAVE!

We all have them pinned on pinterest, beautiful works of art that incorporate God's word. These are great for short passages! Think infographics, colors, fun fonts, outlines, anything! Here are some examples, be creative!

3. Detail

Basically you compare and contrast. On the left page, write the original verse, on the right page draw a line down the middle and compare two people. Example below is from Matthew 18 -- if you have a study Bible that cross-references passage in the Bible, this is especially helpful as you will know where to get more information. Another idea is to compare it to today, to yourself, etc. 

4. Rewrite Personalize :) 

This one gets deep (or at least for me, you may be totally different). Basically you take a passage and make it real to YOU. You can invert a passage or write an inspired psalm. I don't want to say rewrite because I have the utmost reverence for God's word, so we will call it "personalize" as we are making it even more personal to us. 

To invert - write the original verse, then break it down -- if it asks questions, you write a statement. If it has a statement, you write a question. For example: Psalm 15:1-2 

Lord, who may dwell in your house?
Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless,
who does what is righteous... 

The inverse would be: (in my own opinion)
Lord, I want to dwell in your house.
I want to live on your holy mountain.
Is my walk always blameless?
Is my life always righteous? 

To "Personalize" -  On the left page, write it as it is written. On the right page, replace words with something important to you. Tonight we talked about Psalm 23 -- the Lord is my shepherd... The seminar I attended had people saying, "The Lord is like my Grandpa" "The Lord is like a camera" and then tying all of these aspects they loved most about those things into God's love. As a I mentioned tonight, this one guy said "camera" and talked about how God showed him the perfect angles to capture, and flooded his lenses with light, and it was amazing. Here is my example of my "children": 

REMEMBER - there is no wrong way to do this. There are no "stupid" things you write down, no "has to be flawless" drawings. These thoughts and doodles are for you and God. This is to help you study God's word and get into the habit of doing it more routinely (and me, too!). 

Homework time! :) 

• I have asked that you all bring your journals to Resurrection this weekend - GO, pack it now. Rubberband it to your Bible.
• BRING YOUR JOURNALS EVERY WEDNESDAY (and your Bibles, not your Bible apps)
• Please, journal your favorite verse (or one that is important to you) this week and be ready to share either this weekend or next Wednesday, BUT if it is super duper personal and you don't feel comfortable sharing, you don't have to. I won't force you to share ever, but I might ask you to make a doodle you can show us ;)  This journal is between you and God. And if you want to show us all pieces and share, awesome. If you don't, that's okay too. 
• Pray :)

Verses to help kickstart journaling:

• ANY Psalm  -- this is especially helpful for #1, #4
• For doodle - check out the fruits of the spirit - Galatians 5:27-28
• For Detail (#3) - check out Romans 6. It describes Christ's followers. Compare "who I am/was" vs 
• "who I am supposed to be" 

I am praying for you all as we start this together! I hope you are as excited as I am! If you have questions, text me or email me at vmcguin@icloud.com    <3 - v.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from the Guin's! 

After we exchanged Easter baskets and Sam went on his special egg hunt (each egg had a note inside of a reason why I loved him) we went to church and spent the day with family.

As I have been adjusting to the Methodist faith (I was raised Southern Baptist) there is one thing that this particular Methodist church does that I LOVE - the flowering of the cross. Every Easter the children in the congregation bring flowers from home and when they are called down for children's church, they bring their flowers and put them in this cross that is lying on the floor. When they are finished, they stand it up and present it to the congregation -- it is BEAUTIFUL. Today when Mark was talking about it, the sun literally started streaming sooo bright through the top of the church that it illuminated the cross. It was a God moment. I hope people notice. The presence of the Lord was definitely in that place today.

Here's a picture of the cross from the balcony -- I got a close up one but it's blurry:

Hope you had a blessed Easter, too!

Mark 16:1-8 "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' " Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." (NIV)

Time flies

...when you are unemployed.

After my previous position at SunTrust was eliminated, I knew I would go on to something bigger and better. I didn't know where that would be, and to be honest, I was nervous. Yes, I got an 8-week severance, but what if I didn't get a job after 8 weeks? What was I going to do at home all that time? How was I going to keep from getting depressed from not having a job {because I realized my old job was way too much of my identity}?

And all that time it was a big 'ole test of faith. Another link in my TESTimony. There was no reason to worry, God has a plan (I knew that) but I kept saying, "sometimes we just wish we knew what it was!"

Well I found out on Monday.

Last Thursday I was officially offered the position of Marketing Manager for a large surgical practice. To be honest, I didn't think it was a good fit for two reasons. But after attempting to decline the position with the HR lady, I got roped into another meeting with her and the CEO on Monday.

When Monday rolled around I went to Erlanger to meet with them. I wasn't nervous at all and had a sense of peace and calmness. I also had a list of 25 questions. :) We worked through my list and they answered those plus more, and made it very clear they wanted me and after talking with them that day, I walked away very sure of what my decision was (but had to pray {more} about it and talk it over with Sam that afternoon).

So after Sam finally got home to drive to Nashville for school, we discussed it, and I called the HR lady and my new boss (the Practice CEO) to confirm that I did want to join their team.

I have never been this excited about a job. It feels so good to have a company that can't wait for you to start, tells you that they desperately want you, values what you do and the talents that you have, and makes sure that you have the tools that you need to succeed. 

PRAISE BE TO GOD. I am truly blessed and can't wait to start this new adventure on Monday, March 25th.

Graceful

Since Sam has transitioned out of the youth program as Assistant Director to go to law school, I have been missing those kids like crazy! It was nice in the beginning to have Wednesdays and Sundays back, but, after a little break, and after seeing lots of kiddos in church that kept saying, "When are you coming backkkk?? Ughhhh!!!" and after much prayer, I decided to go talk to the new youth director about getting involved again.

God makes divine appointments.

The day I talked to Rebekah, I left with a book that another girl had pitched to her about studying with the girls but didn't want to do it alone. Fast forward a month later and we three are eating lunch and discussing what this study should look like, when it should be, who should come, etc. And here's what we got:

Every Wednesday, Kristy and I facilitate the discussion of Emily Freeman's book, Graceful. We meet at my house and it's awesome. Kristy and Rebekah got the books and Kristy made bookmarks with our contact info and schedule on it! Genius!

Our first meeting we made bracelets to remind us that this group is the "circle of trust" and that what is mentioned in the group stays there. I hope that the bracelets really do remind them :) The next weeks we have been following the leader guide that is on Emily's website and we discuss two chapters a week.

I absolutely love this book, Kristy, and the girls. I am so thankful for this weekly gathering of Godly girls and they have no clue how much they mean to me. And what's really neat is that even though this book is written for 14-18 year olds, it really hits home with me in a lot of the chapters. More on that in a later post, though. :)

How has God been blessing you lately?

While I'm Waiting

New blog, new header, new name & address, new everything! (New background in progress)

This is reflective of my actual life right now. I am transitioning into the "looking for a new job" phase of life. A new phase. When I found out my old job was being eliminated, I panicked. But now that it's here and it's Sunday night and I don't have to go to work tomorrow, I am thankful. 

This is a time in my life to relax, rest, get better. Do things at home that I haven't had time to (more laundry, more curtains), spend more time with my precious husband and family, and get back to basics and pick up some freelance work. This is an opportunity, while I am waiting, to grow closer to the Lord during this season, and to share that with others. 

I told Sam tonight that I was going to pick up so much freelance work and be such a happy stress-less person (aka the old Vanessa), that he wouldn't want me to go back to "real work".

I was only partly joking. :) Who knows, maybe I am supposed to freelance for the rest of my time, or maybe I am supposed to take another corporate job.

Whatever I am supposed to do, I am not going to worry about it. I am trusting in God's plan, His perfect timing, and blooming where I am planted.

Right here. Working from home. Happy.

And that song from Fireproof keeps playing in my head - "While I'm waiting, I will serve You..."