Love Divine ALL Love's Excelling ...

It was rather a close call this year as to whether I would design a Christmas card and get them in the mail on time. I had taken some pretty nice winter pictures last year and this one was very special--I knew that I wanted to use it for my Christmas card this year. But back in late September, I had some computer issues (always, always, always) and to make a long story short, I got everything upgraded on my Mac not realizing it would make my photo program obsolete. So ... that was the first bad thing that happened ... and by the time I got it resolved to my satisfaction, time was running out.

I was also kind of "stuck" on which Christmas carol to use this year. There are so many beautiful ones to choose from. I took days to go through all of the lyrics phrase by phrase but kept coming back to this one: "Love divine, ALL loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down." Isn't it a beautiful thought? It does go very nicely with this photograph too.

There are many verses to this beautiful old hymn, many beautiful phrases, but I picked out just these ones for this card. However, I just could not find a Scripture that went with it! I began to be concerned that I just wasn't going to get this card together. On one of the last possible days I had left to design a card, I just asked the Lord to give me a passage of Scripture that would go with these thoughts of His amazing love and His salvation ... and I stumbled on this verse in Isaiah 61:10, "I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness." When I read that verse, I knew it was perfect.

I was able to get my old photo program running, but it was very frustrating and full of glitches because of the Apple updates, so I went back to looking at the photo program Apple offers. I found out that they completely upgraded their version of my favorite photo program--except it is not as user friendly as the Microsoft version. But I forced myself to learn it, and I love it.

Last January, after a really nice fresh snowfall, I only had two hours to take a walk in the woods and I wanted to find a NEW spot, somewhere I could explore a little bit that was unfamiliar. Proving Trails Park was just the place--and very close by too! It was such a perfect day to hike in the woods. I followed trail after trail, took little side trails, and ended up wonderfully lost in this beautiful stretch of woods. Have you ever had that happen? Isn't it the most fun ever?

That's what I want my heart to be like! Trembling over the wonder of being lost in his amazing love. I am very thankful God helped me put this card together. I think it is the prettiest card I have ever made.