Ink and Ideas and all things new

Just dropping by to let my faithful few know that I have begun again to blog. It is different, new, and scary-beautiful, and I am so excited to share both words and art. I have opened an Etsy shop and am selling and writing and all around having a grand new adventure. God has blessed me immensely, and I hope He gets all the glory for this new direction.

Hope to see you over at Ink & Ideas! http://kasmithscribbler.wix.com/inkandideas

With Joy,

Karly the scribbler

write & wait

I have FMF-ed in ages. I haven't blogged for a month exactly, today. This blog is one I don't use anymore, but it is where I always did these precious five minutes.

When my dear friend told me that the word today was wait, I gave a forced laugh. (via facebook) and I avoided thinking about it for the rest of the day. But He brings us back to things, and as the day folds slowly into a yesterday, I come to an old place I have left behind, this lovely meeting of minutes and hearts.

I didn't want to write about waiting. My friend and I wonder if all we do is talk about and write about waiting. It is pretty obvious that this is a time of waiting for me--waiting for many dreams, an in-between time. Waiting for a full-time job, waiting to settle in, waiting for the duller days of subbing to end.

Today I wrote poems. Not my own, no, today I wrote down poems by Luci Shaw into my poetry journal where I keep the poems that are my inspiration. I learned something as I meticulously, slowly, deliberately hand-penned the words of another. I learned patience. Hand-writing a poem you like is an exercise in slowness, in steady digestion of words and thought-particles. And in that careful absorption, I found a sense of peace. As though He has given this time for me to slowly go over all that I know of His promises, adding what He wishes to teach me, so that I know it by heart. So I believe it when this time is over. I am an impatient one, who was brought to her spiritual knees by the thought that He cares for me as I drove away from that slow, difficult day. Even when I refuse to find the joy where I wait, He gives, and gives, and never stops--He gives snow-iced landscapes and western gold that purples into sharp, star-flecked night.

fade into a new glow

That is what it feels like--this blog fades, but into a new glow, of my new blog, Stones by the River.

I want you on this journey with me.

He has plans--small big ones, and I want to give you what I can, what He can give through me.

To give you encouragement, to give you empathy, to give you small reminders, because it is the small that add up greater than anything we see as great in our lives.

So art--my illustration & graphic design skills will be used for His glory, for your knowing His glory.  And my words, hopefully even better.

There has been self-doubt. There has been back-and-forth. There has been trying to measure the success of a blog, when I should have just been counting the ways He loves. I mean, there are hundreds of other blogs. Thousands. Maybe more. Why add to the clutter?

But I ignore my small-mindedness, and I step out on the faith He asks. He doesn't promise 100 readers, or even 50. He promises that if I follow Him, I will know Him, and He will finish the work begun.

Maybe this new blog will be used to fill small spaces in lives. Maybe I won't ever know--which is probably for the best.

Being a writer is hard--the self-doubt is monumental. But there is One I cannot doubt.

So join me? Walk a few minutes every other week or so beside me? Have tea, coffee, cocoa? I will bring art, my heart and words, won't you bring your eyes and soul?

I wasn't ready

10:46 pm, and I decided I wasn't ready. No five minutes of free-write and community for me.

I didn't think I would even do it. I will probably be among the last, and my blessed few will read it.

Everything is messy just now. Complications to finding work, friends bleeding hearts half out from a hundred miles away, Restlessness itching me from the inside. Transitions, transitions.

I won't be using this blog much anymore--I have decided to start a new one, because I am ready for something new. This was my first blog, my first brave, and I will be letting it go soon. I might still do my five minutes here, but even that is unknown just now.

I am ready for something different, something focused, yet more encompassing. I am calling it Stones by the River. It will be my space to mark the places where He has been in my life in the hopes that we might all see Him more clearly. I want to incorporate my other artistic skills--photography, lettering, drawing. Remnants was what I had time for when I had time for it. But He deserves more than my remnants, and I am ready now to give more.

I must decrease, I must, and this new blog will hopefully be a way for Him to increase.

I wasn't ready to post these words, wasn't ready to share this part of my journey, this risky venture into new, uncharted lands. But He was ready.

I wish I could give you, dear neighbor, something more profound, more interesting, more beautiful, but today this is all I have.