Voice of Thanksgiving

It's time for a new challenge at Word Art Wednesday. As we look at our focus verse for this challenge, we see that it is all about praising the Lord and bringing glory to His name. We are to tell others of all the wonderful things He has done for us and to do so with thanksgiving. It is a privilege to thank the Lord for what He’s done.

Daily gratitude challenges are popular on social media during the month of November. I’ve seen them criticized because “we should be thankful every day, not just during one month of the year.” That is absolutely true. However, being humans, we tend to be forgetful. Do we truly express our gratitude daily? If so, do we do so publicly? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a challenge to remind us to be grateful for everything, big and small, with which the Lord has blessed us. And, just maybe, after expressing our thanksgiving for 30 days, we’ll develop the habit to continue even after November is long gone.

Expressing our thanksgiving to the Lord for the wonderful things He has done in our lives is important in our daily quiet time with Him. It is a type of worship to acknowledge how He’s working in our lives and thanking Him for it. It is also a great testimony to others to openly express our gratitude for the blessings we have and to give the Lord the praise for those things. It’s more than saying, “I’m thankful I have a good job.” Believers and non-believers would express the same. It brings the Lord glory for us to say, “I’m so thankful that the Lord worked out the details for me to have such a good job.” This puts the focus where it belongs. Developing a spirit of thankfulness and expressing it opening and frequently will lift our own spirits and change our attitude. Let’s not only be thankful people, but let us also be open in expressing our thanksgiving to the Lord.

For this week's sketch I used Sweet Sunday Sketch #218 with the measurements given by Kristie Marcotte in this blog post as my inspiration for the card design. One of our sponsors this week is The Stamp Simply Ribbon Store. Then generously gave me the Sunflower Season stamp set to use. I stamped the image and colored it with Copic Markers. After die cutting and matting it, the image panel was adhered to the front of the card. I used my own digi stamp of this week's focus verse and cut it into a flag shape, matted it and adhered it to the bottom right side of the card. Some Stickles in the middle of the flower add the final touch of sparkle.

Supplies:
Sketch - Sweet Sunday Sketch #218
Cardstock: Park Lane #110 white for card base, Georgia Pacific white for sentiment, Copic Paper for Markers for image, Bazzill (Gold Coins, Mud Pie) Recollections (kraft), Orange brand unknown
Patterned Paper - Authentique (Pioneer Plaid)
Stamps - Psalm  26:7 (my own digi design), Stamp Simply clear stamps (Sunflower Season)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Copics - Y15, 17, 19; YG21, 23, 35; W1, 3, 7
Tools/Embellishments - Our Daily Bread Designs dies (Double Stitched Rectangles, Double Stitched Pennant Flags), Stickles (Cinnamon)

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Crop Stop Challenge #45 - Use items/brands found in the Crop Stop Store (I used Ranger, Memento, Fiskars, Scotch, Cuttlebug)
Crafty Creations Challenge #377 - Anything Goes

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