Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 96 . . . CAS

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ! I am the hostess this week, and our sponsor is Clear Dollar Stamps! They are offering a $15 gift card to their store to one randomly selected winner. I used this cute little hippo stamp I received with an order I placed back in January, I believe. My bible verse and thoughts for this week are as follows:

Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.

Before you move one more word forward in this message, go get your bible and open it.

Now that you're back and you have opened to that passage in scripture, go find a solitary place, read the word and pray. Have a conversation with the Lord.

We feel privileged to come here every week and share encouraging words, share our artwork and then view yours in the gallery. As Christians we are to encourage one another in our walk. (Proverbs 27:17, 1 Thessalonians 4:18, Galatians 6:2 as some examples.) However, I feel a burden on my heart that as a nation, as Christians, we are not turning to the power source.

A few weeks ago we had a huge storm that knocked a limb out of a tree. These are hundred-year-old maples so you can imagine how huge the `limb' was, and the storm knocked down the power lines and the entire town was blacked out for over 24 hours. What would have happened if I'd shaken our lamps, yelled at the light switch on the wall, "Why aren't you doing anything? Where is the light you are supposed to provide?"

The lamp, the cord, the switch, these all are elements that connect TO the power source, but remain simple conduits. We, the members of the Stampin' Sisters in Christ team love you as sisters in Christ, but HE is the power source—Christ Jesus. We are not it. Neither is talk radio, facebook, food, the phone, TV, all the things we use to draw our minds away from our troubles, places we turn to as a panacea.

So for this week I want to encourage you to spend time every day in the Word. God wrote a book—read it. God wants a relationship with you—work on it. Find a quiet place to read the bible and pray to God, not with a laundry list of please bless this one and please heal that one; which are all important prayers; but in addition, take the time to be still and to listen for His response, for His will and purpose for your life, and yes, to feel His love wash over you. Go and be still.

God is in all aspects of our lives, even the hustle and bustle, but in quiet times we often hear him best, as it says in I Kings 19:12 "And after the fire there was a gentle whisper."

This week's challenge then is a CAS card, be still and listen for that gentle whisper.

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps main image, Papertrey Ink Turning a New Leaf

Paper: Aqua mist, gray, white, scrap of Doodle Bug Designs

Ink: Kiwi Kiss, Certainly Celery, black

Other: copics, linen thread, scalloped rectangle nestability