Melissa’s Gleanings….

I don’t know if I can fit all that I’ve gathered over the last month.  I apologize for my absence but if you would like an explanation please see the previous post published on Monday, April 18, 2016.  I missed you tremendously.

But… I believe the Lord had a plan for me and I needed to refuel, recharge and draw nigh unto Him.  It’s not like I slipped so far that I was lost, but I slowly had let the day to day life pull me a little farther from Him than I needed to be.  So this break from blogging and social media interaction has allowed Him to pour into me more of Him and I am so thankful He loves me enough to show me when I am moving away from my first love.

I have to share one product with you that I am absolutely loving.  I found a new favorite pen that comes in a rainbow of color of course I only see purple and write it.  But this pen has helped me return to journaling and praying in color.  It is the PaperMate InkJoy Gel Pen.  It is hard to find and if you buy it off the online major website you will pay way too much for the pens and for the shipping unless you have prime.  I got mine at Walmart.  Yes, Walmart who is giving this major online site a run for their money and doesn’t overcharge you for shipping.  Go check these pens out, I was not asked by PaperMate to do a review.  I just happened to pick these up as I have been seeing a little bit about them on the world wide web.  Let me tell you all the hype is right.  These pens are the smoothest writing gel pens I’ve ever encountered.  No skip.  No skip I repeat.  That is one reason I hate gel pens they skip but not these beauties.  And the rainbow of color is so beautiful.

My personal retreat (blogging break) took me in a different direction that I want to share with you.  Just a disclaimer my description of this process will not do it justice.  So google it and find the post about Verse Mapping 101.  This is the blog post that started me down a path, a slippery path of drawing nearer to the Lord using a Bible Study method called Verse Mapping.  Now I must say here that I don’t agree with all the Verse Mapping blogs or sites you can find on google.  Just my personal opinion.  I don’t think we should approach the Word of God by just letting our Bible fall open to a verse and study it.  I believe in plan to study, study to plan or fail.  You may have a different view and that is great.  So if you are following a plan or not you can try out verse mapping anytime, anywhere!  I love the fact that you don’t need to purchase a study to be able to use it.  All you really need is the Word of God, a pen and a piece of paper.  Now, when you google Verse Mapping you will see that you can go much further than just the basics and that is fine.  Whatever draws you near to the Lord without losing focus of the real reason you started to Verse Map in the first place.

I prefer to use a composition notebook.  I just love composition notebooks.  I really find it hard to find pretty ones.  I would love to have one’s with verses on them or at least something feminine not just your black, white, yellow covers.  I need color.  If you find any would you please share with me?  I read a tutorial about covering a composition book with fabric but it lost me at cut the fabric.  Not crafty.  Not artistic.    So can you help a girl out?  Then I read that you could use scrapbook paper to cover your composition book and make it look pretty.  Yep, that worked out for me.  My composition book is glued to my desk and my laptop sits on it now.  Really pretty.

How I Verse Map is different than others too.  Yours will be too.  There is no right or wrong way.  You goal is to draw near to the Lord.  In my method of Verse Mapping I start at: Prayer, (you gathered your supplies above) so I begin with praying.  I ask the Holy Spirit to meet me right where I am and to illuminate the Word that I am about to ingest.  To give me wisdom and understanding to comprehend what it means for me personally.  I ask the Holy Spirit to help me do what it says, when it says and to heed it carefully.  I thank God for the Word that He gave us and the fact that I have such easy access to it.  I thank the Holy Spirit for His illumination.  And then I am ready for Step Number Two:

2:  As I mentioned above I have to have a plan when I study.  I can’t randomly let my Bible fall open and go with it.  I have been doing Hello Mornings Bible studies for years.  I am currently doing a Nourish study too.  Since the Hello Mornings Bible study was one I had done before I decided to use this one in case I got lost along the journey.  I began reading the passages that the study suggested and I kept reading until something stood out to me.  Something like a question, a verse or nugget of truth I had not gleaned before.  Sometimes I read for long periods of time and others it pops off the page right away.  Remember there is no right or wrong way to do this.  It is God, Holy Spirit, The Word and you meeting in your quiet place.

I am going to stop there and will finish the exciting journey of Verse Mapping in another blog post.

Until Next Time,

M