
Writing Your Heart on the Word
- Peace,Faith & Trust - June 27, 2018
- To Do: A Sacred Home - December 5, 2017
- For Everything There is a Season - September 22, 2016
Write the Word on your heart
by writing your heart on the Word
I am a visual learner through and through. I have to write things down. I have to look at my lists constantly to remember things. I love maps and knowing where things are. I love stationary with lines for my lists. I actually have lists of lists. Yeah, I’m one of those, ha! When I was in Bible class as a child, I was always so confused as to why the map of where things happened in the Bible had different names than those same places today. A visual learner’s nightmare!
I recently discovered Bible journaling through IllustratedFaith.com and my whole spiritual experience has been forever changed. Until now, my visual and creative side had no part of my experience with the Word. And where would it? The bible is a book I could visually read, of course. Or as some people do, I could listen to the spoken word, but it’s too easy for me to tune that out. I could watch movie reenactments of the stories, but even then my mind wonders to the process of creating such a film and not the actual point and message.

My mind was BLOWN upon discovering how some people have begun to put their creative juices literally ON the pages of their Bible! Draw creatively in the Bible? Use paints ON the Bible?? Stamps? Stickers? Ribbons? Tape? Markers? A simple search of the hashtag, #illustratedfaith on Instagram helped me to understand that this was a world worth getting on board. A world where my work is perfect because I created it, and I created it for a reason that speaks to me!

The process of illustrating my faith onto the pages of my Bible “had me at hello!” I began simple, with just pulling out a key phrase here or there that spoke to me that day. Sometimes, just writing it larger in the margins, similar to the way some magazine articles are designed. A call out of a specific text. As I dug deeper and continued to be inspired by others, I became more brave and confident to claim my bible in a new way!

I am so excited to get to share this new way to experience the Word! I really feel that I am experiencing the text in a new way. I think about how I had drawn the verse that spoke to me yesterday, and I think about what verse I want to illustrate next. It can be a form of meditation, to stir on the words in a way that may be new to me! I have a sketchbook full of ideas that I play with before I put anything on my Bible pages. Some verses have several pages of thoughts and ideas.
When is the last time you can say you used pages and pages of a notebook focusing on one verse?
When I started bible journaling, my answer was NEVER!
“Imprint these words of mine on your hearts and minds” Deuteronomy 11:18