Grace Abounds

I finished reading an amazing book last night. Christ the Lord out of Egypt by Anne Rice. I borrowed it from the library but will have to buy my own copy.
Wow.
I was curious about it as I only knew Anne Rice as the author of Vampire books. At the end of Christ the Lord she talks powerfully and movingly of her return to Christian faith. I was also unsure about reading it as I thought it might make the story of Jesus seem a bit trivial or ridiculous. But she has researched meticulously. I recognised some of the books she read from my 6 years of academic theological study. And she has created a wonderful picture of what life was like for people living at the time of Jesus. It is written in the first person and I still think you have to be very careful about trying to get into the mind of Christ. But I think she does it very well indeed. it is all so vividly painted and the way she sees things just makes so much sense. I had goosepimples reading it. The sequel is out very soon and I can't wait!

I did feel that the grace of God was with Anne as she wrote the book and it was a fitting feeling as this weeks Salt challenge was all about Grace. Kim S chose the theme.

God's grace

God provides us with a measure of grace each and every day, to face hardships, to grant us patience and forgiveness, to strengthen us in a time of temptation....but most importantly God's grace delivers us from the bondage of our sins by enabling us to trust in Christ as Savior. I am encouraged by this description of grace from D. Scott Meadows' booklet, "God's Astounding Grace" and pray that it might be a blessing to you as well:

"The word grace is a kind of shorthand for the whole sum of unmerited blessings, which come to men through Jesus Christ. Primarily, it describes what we, for want of a better expression, have to call a "disposition" in the Divine nature; and it means the unconditioned, undeserved, spontaneous, eternal, stooping, pardoning love of God."

Amen and Amen! Surely, God's free gift of grace can cause us to sing His praises each and every day!

I knew I wanted my title to be Amazing Grace. Because Grace is amazing! But that I didn't want to use the words of "that" hymn on my layout. And that I didn't want to use just my words either. So I trawled through my various hymn and song books (and I have a lot) til I found some words that spoke to me by John Pantry. You can read the words and listen to the music here - just scroll down to the bottom.

Here is what I did with it.
The title is cut out with the robo. Large letters are Arial Black and small ones are Complete in Him, as are the words of the song.
Papers are all American Crafts Bookshelf with extra outlining.
The cardstock is Bazzill Kraft which has been painted using a Crafters Template as a stencil and Ranger Dabbers - I just love those colours. The corner scrolls are painted using a free template from Scrapbook Inspirations. All then outlined in white.
Its very busy but I wanted something exuberant that expressed the feeling that grace abounds!