Between The Lines – A Painted Date Project

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I have been sitting on this project a while. It was stirring in the back of my head for a long time and Father’s Day pushed the idea out to fruition. I wanted some dates on display. Not just any dates, but the most important dates that have happened in my life.

I had some old wood that I had my hubs put together into a canvas of sorts. I used one here. The other I saved and painted while my husband was off on a business trip. It was my gift to him for Father’s Day. I think he really liked it and I promptly hung it on his side of the bed.

The dates that I traced and hand painted are our wedding anniversary and the birthdays of our three kiddos. Big Days. Days that melt my heart and can bring a sap like me to tears in a nanosecond.

I wanted to share this project with you, but each week I held off. You see I wait for God to speak to me about the projects I do and am always anxious to see what lesson he has engrained in each one for me. This project obviously caused me to marinate in some precious moments, but no message from the Lord walked forward to present it’s self.

So I have been waiting.

Curious.

Trying to come up with my own idea…which I am sure you know never really works.

Then I went away last week to my first blogging conference. It was amazing. I will share more later. While I was there my internet didn’t work and there was no extra time to do blog posts and write. Which is exactly, I assume, how God planned it. I was totally going to write about this project. I don’t know what I would have written, but it wasn’t this.

I woke up this morning and read a post by a new blogging friend, Melanie, about the small “wins” she encountered over the conference we attended together. (read her post here.) Then God spoke to me about the small things in my life.

The time between the lines. The time between the dates of the big events. The little events that I don’t even notice. The paths he crosses right in front of me and I stand back, clueless to where they will lead. These brief moments in time that we choose to act one way or another, let the Holy Spirit lead us or go on about our day without giving in to his nudges.

Much like my friend Melanie described we pray, ask for and hone in on BIG things to happen in our lives. We get this laser focus. “If only I got this job or that house everything would be better.” I wonder how often our Big desires overshadow the daily gifts we are given and we never even see the small series of steps that it takes to get to the dream job or fantasy house. Because God wants to give us those things, the desires of our hearts. (Matthew 21:22) He is probably dropping pebbles on a path right now in front of you that lead to your wildest dreams. The question is are you picking up the pebbles as you go, or only looking ahead for the boulders?

While these four dates are the biggest and most important in my life, they aren’t the end. They lead to more. I sit this week about to head off to another conference. (Please know this I am not a conference hopper! This has just been a crazy gift that has happened all at once!) And I sat wondering how I even got here.

My mind went back to the day I decided to subscribe to the Proverbs 31 Ministry daily devotionals. You see I have a dear friend, one of my very best in the whole world. I prayed for a friend back when I was a young mom, new to town and needing friends. God served her up on a silver platter.

Pebble.

She loved me enough that when a devotional came her way that was about something she knew I needed to hear she would forward it to me. Not a lot, just a few times. It was probably the third or fourth devo she sent that I though, “if she likes this ministry, I’m sure I will too.” And of course I did. So I subscribed. I knew the Lord already, so this isn’t a conversion story. It is a story of small details.

My girlfriend dropped one of those little detail pebbles in front of me that day.

Those few little e-mails that lead to my P31 subscription are what laid the foundation for me to go to the Proverbs 31 She Speaks conference this week. I didn’t know about the ministry, wasn’t familiar with the leaders and certainly didn’t know about the conference prior to her encouragement. Because I subscribe, I was notified of the conference and felt the nudge to act on the invitation to attend.

Another pebble.

Who knows what this week will bring, but I can assure you it will be nothing short of amazing. Especially if I look around me for the little moments and don’t just have my head in the clouds, looking ahead and dreaming of things that might come.

The monumental dates I am so blessed to have in my life are the framework that everything else falls into. But, it’s the little snippets of time that make the difference. The little pebbles we pick up or perhaps drop for others in their journey. You know – when God tells you to forward an e-mail to a friend and you chose to act or pass. It’s the moments you walk past your kids playing a game and chose to sit and play or go on about your schedule. It’s deciding to have time to call a friend when she comes to mind or sending a text instead or maybe not reaching out at all. The little moments when nothing really happens, at least so you think. Those moments add and build up to the big things. God is in the little details, working on the big ones. So invite him into small moments, listen when he moves you and recognize him in between the lines. (UPDATE: I went to the P31 conference AFTER I wrote this and you can read my thoughts here. Can I just tell you one of my new friends LITERALLY gave me pocket pebbles with encouraging scripture written on them…that’s how in the details God is!)

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. Acts 7:11

Here it is by the hubs’ side of the bed.

Quick instructions:

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1. I white washed the wood board we fastened together. I did this by dry brushing white paint and sanding it back down to get the grain exposure that made me happy.

2. I cut letters out of cardstock on my Cricut. You could use stencils or print letters from your computer and cut them out.

3. Lay out the letters and trace them.

4. Hand paint the letters/numbers with acrylic craft paint. I find a small stiff brush easier to control when painting the outline.

5. Allow paint to dry completely and sand to your liking. Easy as pie.