Bible Journaling...God Encourages My Creativity

I'm not even sure now how I stumbled on Bible journaling.  (I'll blame Pinterest.)  But it wasn't until I found Illustrated Faith that I gave myself permission to try it out in my own Bible.

It reminded me of the time several years ago I gave myself permission to write in my Bible.  My husband gave me the Bible I have years ago, and I tried to keep it perfect.  I never wrote notes in the margins or underlined or highlighted anything.  I kind of felt it would be disrespectful to God's Word to mark it up.  Besides, I might mess something up. (gasp)

What freedom has come with letting myself make my copy of the Word my own!  Now it doesn't just have my name printed on the front - it has my soul all through the pages.

For some reason I had to go through the same process about stamping and painting in my Bible.  When I started reading the Illustrated Faith blog, and seeing the pictures of what other people are doing in their Bibles, I was in awe.  I'm not artistic.  I can't make anything perfect.  Most of the time my inspiration comes from what someone else has done.  I'm the ultimate copier. :)  Could I come up with my own ideas?  I didn't want to buy a Bible just for journaling...how could I use my already marked up Bible to journal?  Finally I quit asking questions and just jumped in.  This is my first attempt:

Very simple - and it fit perfectly under some sermon notes and a copy of Philippians 4:13 from the Amplified version I'd copied. You've just got to love those little round birds!  And just like that, I was hooked.

These are lyrics from Always by Kristian Stanfill.  Love this song.

Look at that gorgeous blue!  This gives me another reason to love Distress inks.  They work beautifully in my Bible.

This is an inlay of blue velum held in place by washi tape.  The notes were from a sermon by John Piper about worry.  The Illustrated Faith site has lots of tutorials about different ways to add pages in your Bible without adding bulk.  This method works really well.

I am loving the combination of God's Word, stamps, pens and ink.  Someday I will probably get a wide margin Bible just for this purpose, but until then I'm loving using the one I have.

Am I the only one who's been conflicted about marking in their Bible?  I'm so thankful God kept nudging me to make my copy of His Word really mine in this way!