Be Present for Christmas - Lesson 5 - Watch & Wait

Today's activity is preparing a Grateful Jar.  I started with 500 ml Jam Jar.  I created a tag and printed it on kraft card stock.  I made the corners round with a punch.  I put a 1/8" hole in the top left hand corner.  I cut a length of white cotton thread and ran the fold through the hole and pulled the ends back through the loop and pulled it taut.  I placed the cotton onto the red ribbon and added a knot and trimmed the ends.
The red ribbon was then tied onto the neck of the jar and knotted twice and the ends were trimmed.
I adhered a small glassine sleeve on the back of the tag and placed my grateful notes inside.  These notes are small pieces of paper.
Regularly, write down things you are grateful for and place the note in the jar.  When you are having a bad day, open the jar, read about the gifts and blessings you have received and surely your spirits will be uplifted.

I'm selecting my lessons from The Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp.  The book provides 24 lessons for each day of Advent of which I have chosen 6 for this class.  We will have readings, questions, discussion, and an activity each week.

In this weeks lesson we read Habakkuk 2:1, 3:16-19 which talks about how the people are going astray and the prophet beseeches God to help.  Despite the sad state of affairs he decides to go to the top of the watch tower and shout "I will trust You, God, and I will watch, and I will wait.  I will find joy, make joy, take joy, see joy!  Rejoice and re-joys again!"

Share Your Cup #215

I worked on my lesson plans and activities for the Advent preparation class "Be Present for Christmas" which I am offering next month.  It is a class for adults to help us to pull back from the commercial aspects of Christmas and focus on the Reason for the season Jesus. It is based on the book "The Greatest Gift" by Ann Voskamp.  We will be having 6 lessons this time and I have updated 3 of the lessons so that it will not be the exact class from last year.  I will be posting my lessons as I teach them.

I brought some produce home from my sister's house last weekend.  I cut up this beautiful red rhubarb into chunks and froze it for crisps in the winter.  The tomatoes are grown by a friend of hers and there was a bag full of those in various stages of ripeness so I could enjoy them over a period of time.


We had a very good fellowship time on Thursday. I have taken over the planning of the group because I thought it was important that it continue.  The women really appreciated the time together to share prayer concerns.
I did a devotion on Tea - Is that a surprise? We mentioned Hospital - Tea, Hones - Tea, and a few more.  You can find it here.
Sharing with Carol at Art&Sand - Share Your Cup #125

Card - Challenge - Jar

I made this card for one of my on-line groups.  The challenge was to use a jar on the card.

I searched on-line and found this jar at Sweetly Scrapped.  I printed it on vellum and fussy cut around the image.  I printed the daisies from Graphics Fairy on yellow DP.  I then dug out the chalks I haven't used in a while and applied some to the back of the jar, the flowers and stems, and the background of the image. I mounted the flowers onto a blue card with french script from Graphics Fairy too as the background.  I added some thin twine around the neck of the jar. It needed something else, so I added a thin black border on the yellow done by hand.