Time to Pray at Christmas and Always

  Here I am, posting another Just Add Ink's Fancy Fold Blog Hop card!

This time, it is from Patrice's inspiration, the Telescoping Circles Card!!!

Wooo hooo, if you only knew how EASY THIS IS....you'd be whipping these babies up in no time.

I shall give you pictures to peruse....

Are you still there?

If you are, let me share how and why I added the sentiment "TIME TO PRAY".

It was stamped from ODBD Time, from two sentiments "Take time to Pray" and "Time to Celebrate".  

I felt "Time to Pray" was way more effective for this card, considering the top sentiment. 

Which, by the way, gave me an interesting photo here. ;)

Think these sentiments are odd for Christmas?

  I don't.

I have learned to pray without ceasing.

When?

When I was broken.

About 8 years ago, we were stationed in Germany.  Four months after moving there, my husband was deployed for 15 months.

This isn't new or extraordinary by any means....some have gone through similar or more -

- many times.

But for me, it was unbelievably unbearable to be alone with my 2 year old, 4 year old and 6 year old for that long.  

I worried that my husband would die, get injured, disappear....you name it, I imagined it.

I'm an island girl.  I am originally from Hawaii. 

I didn't move from there until I was 23 when I traveled with my new husband to our first duty station.

Tennessee was huge to me.

North Carolina was another transition.

Another country?

Without my husband?

You might as well have asked me to move to the moon.

Beautiful country.

Wonderful people.

But I never felt more alone or scared and out of my elements.

However, I was not totally alone.

I had Jesus.

You want to know about the power of prayer?

Prayer didn't just get me through the big stuff.

It didn't just keep my husband alive.

IT WAS MY LIFE LINE.

I survived the small stuff.

I shopped at grocery stores and drove through towns where I didn't know the language AT ALL.

Now, some of you might not be impressed.  I don't expect you to be.

But, if you knew me at all....you would be.

I am the biggest scaredy cat you could know.

It is hard for me to even talk about my feelings and struggles alone in Germany without tearing up.

I did it.  Jesus and I.  

Prayer is powerful and I learned the power of it.

THE END

Hey, thanks for listening.  That was really really hard for me (it always is), but I had to share it.

PS...God DID GIVE ME FRIENDS THERE.  They will ALWAYS be my best friends. ;)  However, when you are going through a war without your spouse or loved ones (even with them near)..you can still be SO ALONE, ya know?  It is a heavy, heavy, burden to bear and I will never take lightly what these families sacrifice every day and hour that they are apart from their soldier and visa versa.

I entered this in ODBD's Challenge #38, because it is a Christmas card with ODBD images.

info:

ODBD Time stamp set, ODBD Keep My Lamp Burning, Justrite A Merry Little Christmas Set, Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Versamark Ink, white embossing powder, little brads, Spellbinders classic circles and scalloped circles