Month: January 2010 (Page 1 of 2)

My First Song

January 27, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 3 Comments

I can’t believe I just did this, but …

I put my first song on YouTube to share with you.

I did a version where I was singing the words.. you won’t see it, ever.

You’ll have to use your imagination:

I’ll play You a song,

I’ll play You a song of praise.

Oh, Most High

A song of praise to You.

Very excited to be able to play anything,

My New Kinnor

January 24, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

I am the proud new owner of a 12 string kinnor.

A harp maker in Austral made it for me.

I picked it out especially because a little over a year ago I had a dream where

an older, mentor type lady brought one to me. I had no idea what kind of

instrument it was at the time so I drew a picture of it.

A year later I found this one on line. None else makes one quite like it.

http://www.harpsales.com

It’s my birthday, Christmas and everything else present all wrapped into one.

I am very excited. I am hoping that like in the dream

this will be the one instrument that I can learn to play.

It’s very hard to be musically challenged in a family of musicians.

I love to worship. I love to sing loud.. even when I am out of tune.

A loud church sound system is a must.

I can jump but not dance. Sometimes, clapping on beat is a challenge.

I’ve never had anyone tell me that I am bad at waving flags,

so I wave them as often as possible.

I am very excited to have a room in our new house that’s big enough

to worship with flags. In the past, I’d take them outside occasionally.

When the kids were younger, I spent every evening practicing the guitar

while they were getting ready for bed. I learned how to play 10 or so cords

just to discover that I am not coordinated enough

to strum and play the cords at the same time.

If I practice a hymn for several days on the piano, I can play it so-so,

but that can be loud and annoying for everyone to hear the same song day after day.

I know how it feels to be on the other side of things and think, “anyone can do ___ if

they just try or give it some time.” Hope springs eternal.

I learned that harps are “diatonic” like the Do, Ra, Me scale,

so no matter what note you play it harmonizes.

I got a chromatic tuner too, so I can tune it.

Here is Mike teaching me how to tune it.

I’ll have to tune it everyday for a while.. new strings and all.

Pray for me not to give up.

Maybe one day I’ll take it to hospitals

and play and pray for the sick and see them recover.

Love,

Our Game Room/Den

January 23, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

Here are more picts of our house.

You can see the foyer and Prayer room through these doors.

Just outside and to the right is our front door.

This is our game room/den.

It’s basically the kids’ TV room. They enjoy watching shows like

“Everybody Loves Raymond” while doing their math homework in here.

The French doors keep their TV noise separate from the rest of the house,

while allowing us to check in on what they are watching.

Each flower pict has part of the Love Chapter printed on it.

Did you know that love is so many things? I love the garden effect.

I am still trying to get the hang of gardening, so I enjoy my love picture garden year round.

The blank wall is reserved for my family quilt. I need to get to work on finishing it.

I got the lamp in Gatlinburg last year. I love the colors.

The cord wasn’t long enough to reach the ceiling and back,

so I created the arm from a piece of molding and a dowel from HD.

Here is my collage of C&W’s families. Do you like it?

Minus the frame it only cost $6 to print at Costco.

I was very happy with how it turned out.

I’d like to update it from time to time so I can remember how big the kids are getting.

Like my scripture/photo art? I cut the mat to fit and printed the words on sticker paper.

Moving around the room to the game amore.

I have a small collage of Mike’s nephews and nieces on the TV shelf.

I am hoping one day to find the perfect fabric for curtains and the pillows.

I hate the brown pillows that came with the couch.

It’s my bright, red, white, blue, orange and green room.

Sowing Seeds in the Kid’s Bath

January 22, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

I was able to finish the photos in time to order and pick them up

on our weekly shopping trip after gymnastics.

I decided to put the parable on the photos and the explanations in brackets

on little cards like at a museum.

I thought that printing them that way would draw more attention to them than

if I put both on the photo and that it was actually easier to read that way.

It’s kinda a long story so I thought it was my best chance of getting it read.

I edited my first post about the parable and put in the words I used if you’d like to read it.

I’d like to put “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.” above it.

But that will be a while later.

Anyone have one of those vinyl letter making machines I can borrow?

I will be taking all the kids into the bathroom for a tour of the story

and make sure that we have a family devotion where we discuss

the things I learned from Joseph Prince. 🙂

I made the numbered birds Sunday. What for??

When we were selling our house in FL, I bought the new

silvery sage towels and rainbow shower curtain to help stage the house.

For years I had a different color towel for each kid,

so that if there was a towel on the floor there was no question who left it,

although they’d like to argue that there was.

Since I replaced the old ratty towels, no one can remember which towel is theirs

and they almost always choose a new one from under the sink and,

of course, throw it on the floor when they are done.

It took me forever to try to think of a way to identify their towels. I thought about sewing on colored ribbons.. but then they’d have to look through the towels to find the right one.

So I am trying the numbered birds. The odd numbers are a little lower than

the even for the towels on the lower rack.

So far I think it’s working. 🙂

Here’s the rest of the bathroom.

I know their getting a little too old for Murdock the talking duck, but he’s so cute.

Thanks for looking at my hall bath parable. More house photos to come.

The Parable of the Sower

January 19, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

I am working on my newest art project. I heard Joseph Prince teach on the Parable of the Sower a few weeks ago. It was very good as all his teachings are. He pulled out truths from all three of the gospel accounts. I want to illustrate the truths with photos on the kid’s bathroom wall. The things that stood out to me were:

1) This parable is the key to all the other parables. (Mark 4:13)

2) If you don’t understand the Word, hold on to it, listen again. The Devil is anxiously waiting to pounce and steal it from you because he knows what kind of fruit it can produce.

3) Trouble and persecution come BECAUSE of the Word. When they come, hold on to it tight.. it will develop good character in you. Don’t be deceived into thinking that it’s not worth it or that God’s word isn’t true. Even when it doesn’t look like it, it is. “Did God say?” is the Devil’s line. Our line is “God’s word says,..”

4) The fruit comes through perseverance. (Luke 8:15) And sometimes gradually; first 30 then eventually 100 fold.

Here are the words I am using for art.

As a farmer was sowing his seed, some fell on a footpath

and were trampled on and the birds come and ate them up.

When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes immediately and snatches away what was sown in his heart,

so that he may not believe and be saved. Luke 8:12

Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where there wasn’t much soil; they sprang up quickly, but when the sun came up the plants were scorched, and withered away because they didn’t have deep roots.

Those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy,

yet have no depth of character (firm root) in themselves,

last only a short time.

When trouble or persecution comes because of the word,

they quickly fall away. Mark 4:13

Other seeds fell among thorns that

grew up and choked out the tender plants.

Those who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed by worries

about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get.

The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it. Mark 8:19

Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced

a crop that was thirty, sixty,

and even a hundred times as much as was planted.

The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear, understand,

and embrace God’s word and through perseverance produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as was planted! Matthew 13:23

Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

Perfect Mix Match

January 10, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 2 Comments

We’ve been collecting furniture for quite a while now.

My bedroom furniture is a rainbow of colors.

My sweet mother-in-love gave me this hope chest that belonged to her mother.

We bought the set of chest of drawers when Judi was a baby.

We found the bookshelves for a deal at Pier 1 Imports.

The sewing machine cabinet belonged to my Mamalene.

We replaced our waterbed with this cast iron bed when we moved to Texas.

Each piece bears battle scars from the many moves.

I never owned a nightstand until today.

I am very excited because not only does it blend in perfectly with my rainbow

of battle scared furniture but it has a twin!

Don’t they match perfectly with my bed spread? I love the birds.

We went to several furniture stores.

Have you seen how much furniture cost new?

I was just about ready to buy some Wall Mart build-it-yourself furniture

when I decided to check Craig’s List and found this set of nightstands

at an antique store down the road.

They’re made of REAL wood.

They came assembled and a little distressed to match the rest of my room.

And they were less than half the price of new.

(Big smile.) Yay! And Thank You Jesus.

What’s in Your Bible?

January 9, 2010 / Jennifer Coleman / 1 Comment

I spent the week unpacking books.

It was difficult because I haven’t settled where they are all going to go yet. I am short one nice big closet for keeping scrapbooks and the books I am saving for grandchildren.

I noticed Thursday that I’ve collected quite a few Bibles.

Two were given to me last year on my birthday.

I grew up reading and loving the King James Bible my parents gave me.

Then when I started reading passages to the kids,

I felt like I needed a dictionary to explain almost every other word.

I wanted God easily accessible for them with out Mr. Webster or me in between.

So I bought my first non-King James Bible.

Now I love the easier to read versions and I am unfortunately

developing a growing resentment towards people who talk in “thee’s and thou’s.”

Jesus didn’t speak in a antiquitified language.

The Bible was written in the most modern, accessible language of its day.

We recently went to see the Blood and Ink exhibit.

It’s amazing to learn about the sacrifices made

for the Bible to be translated and distributed in everyday language.

The stories of the thousands of people killed in the name of the church

for possessing and reading the Bible are horrific.

In houses past I’d strategically put a Bible in each room.

This time I am toying with the idea of putting most of them in one spot

so I can just go to that spot and pick witch one I want.

I called to ask my Mom what she thought about the idea.

She wasn’t home.. so in a moment of weakness I asked my dad.

Ergo the explanation of the King James version above.

My dad would be happy to know that our church here reads

the New King James version of the Bible.

This is where I put them for now. My favorite version (The Message) is on top.

The King James my parents gave me is on bottom.

Oh, boy! Maybe I should get a shelf.

I have two New King James versions.

And another King James that belonged to my Mamalene.

Missing from the stack is a parallel Bible that I will probably keep in my room.

And the NIRV that I keep with our school books to read with the kids during school.

Honestly, most of the non-King James versions were gifts.

Don’t Bibles make good gifts?

I have the confess that The Message was a gift to myself.

I found it at the Unclaimed Baggage store.

The Bible I read most is on http://www.biblegateway.com/.

I love it because I can read my favorite versions side by side.

I love to find a verse or a chapter and chew on it from different points of view.

I’ve been known to use the different versions

to write my own version and call it “Jenny’s version.”

Sacrilege. Right?

Not only that but I’ll use my version for art work or the kids memory work.

I am probably scaring them for life.. don’t tell my dad.

It’s just that one version will express one part so well then

I don’t want them to miss the meaning of the other part in the other version.

I rarely read more than a chapter at a time.

I don’t think reading a Bible should be a race, but a time to pray and meditate.

The Holy Spirit loves to show me new things in His Word.

My favorite version on Bible Gateway is the New Living Translation.

Maybe I’ll find a hard copy at a garage sale sometime.

The thing only thing I don’t like about the online version

is that you can’t write notes in the margin.

I should look into finding one of those ministries that collect

old Bibles to give to people who don’t have one.

I could probably part with a few.

But to get to my title,

I could never part with the ones with notes in the margins.

I love to go back and read the King James version

that my parents gave me for that very reason.

My favorite, favorite Bible is a small new testament that I carried with me

through High School and the beginning of my married life.

There is so much good stuff in there.. so much revelation written in the margins.

I’d kinda stopped writing in the margins ..

since I started reading the one online and write my own versions.

I have a collection notebooks of notes and prayers that I started years ago.

None of which I’d want my kids to read now, but one day.

My Mamalene’s King James Bible has notes and red check marks and underlines by her favorite passages. It’s a treasure.

I feel a connection with her when I read it and

SOOO blessed to have a heritage of faith.

When I read her notes I remember how she loved God

and strove to become like Him.

My favorite memory of her and Granddad was that

every night before bed they would read a chapter of the Bible.

No discussion. Just a short prayer and time to go to bed.

I always wanted to carry on that tradition with my kids.

It didn’t translate quite that way but I hope the kids will fondly remember

“Jenny’s version” of the verses we memorized and our morning prayers

and the Bible studies and discussions we did through the years.

Here’s one of my favorite passages from my Mamalene’s Bible.

In the front cover of her Bible she has a newspaper clipping that quotes WM. A. Ward, “Difficulties are never designed to discourage, dominate or destroy us, but to deepen us.”

A few more notes from Mamalene’s Bible

To be used of God

1) Much time in secret prayer

2) Complete disregard of self

3) Life filled with doing good things

We must come to the place where we can live the sacrificial life

then we can go out and witness.

The only thing that will solve problems of individual, country

or the world is for man to have a right relationship with God!

Thou will keep him in perfect peace who trusteh in Him

because his mind is stayed on Me.

How to Study the Bible