Beautiful in God’s Eyes

Last year the girls and I discovered a rather wonderful way to carry out a bible study, which was to art journal our way through the bible.  We started with Proverbs 31 and thoroughly enjoyed each Wednesday evening together, learning more about being a woman of God.  It was so enjoyable we asked some friends to join us and whilst we all had fun I noticed a considerable difference in how open we all were.  I guess when it was just a mother and her two daughters there was no holding back or fear of embarrassment  Our time together on a Wednesday evolved into more of a relationship building time with our friends, as we chatted, had fun and all got to know each other.  For this time I am really grateful for it has blessed every member of our family with some rich friendships I am sure will last the test of time.

But there was also a sadness for what we had lost.  I think all three of us had treasured our bible study, our journaling and most of all the precious relationships we built through the honest sharing of our hearts.  This year we swapped the day we would meet with our lovely friends and we have been able to resume our bible study of Proverbs 31.

Along the way I had sourced a lovely book written for teenagers called Beautiful in God’s Eyes for young women (Elizabeth George).  We decided to go back to the beginning again, this time using this book.

I smiled throughout yesterday as the twins kept mentioning the bible study and how excited they were and once Gary had left with T13 for fencing, C12 enthusiastically gathered all our supplies, both girls plonking down in the living room, awaiting the arrival of their mother who was busy putting the two younger girls to bed.

This was the sight I was greeted by when I returned:

They couldn’t really have spread themselves out much more, could they?  In the name of peace, I  made no comment about the mess and plonked myself down to join them (we couldn’t use the table on account of a massive, humongous, incredibly large paper mache map of the world!).

As they continued to cut, stick and create, I read out the chapter in the book which dealt with the verse we were on.

As I joined them we passed an enjoyable hour creating masterpieces, discussing the study questions at the end of the chapters and writing down prayers concerning that particular verse:

It was a fairly in depth study which lasted well over an hour and a half.  C12 enjoys reading out loud and after she had finished her journal page she asked if she could read out the whole of Proverbs 31 whilst we finished up.

Proverbs 31 is my favourite passage in the bible, and along with Titus 2 and 1 Thessalonians 4, I consider it to be my life verse that Jesus gave me to focus my life on.

I have studied proverbs 31 so many times and read every book I can get my hands on which discusses it in greater depth.  It has been a joy to share with my girls and see their delight in discovering new truths each week.

Art journalling our way through the bible is such a good fit for our family and it allows us to hunker down and get to the truth of what exactly the passage means to us individually:

I’m grateful for this time with my girls.  It is a blessing for all of us, and is a time of sharing and closeness, and when the girls leave to go up to bed, they give me a huge cuddle and kiss, enthusing that they can not wait for next week.  Me neither.