~incREDible~ - Faith Sisters Scrapbooking Gallery

Me wearing the infamous red blouse…right before I tossed it out =)
I based the word ~ incREDible ~ on the project (RED) slogan
DIGITAL SUPPLIES
Rough N Red Alphabet: Krystal Hartley; Heart 5, Crushing, Madly, Twitterpated, Deeply, Always: Sweetest Thing: Krystal Hartley
Font: Arial
JOURNALING:
One week at church my pastor mentioned that the coming Sunday would be Pentecost Sunday and in honor of that everyone was encouraged to wear red to symbolize the flames of the Holy Spirit coming down and being showered upon the disciples. Now I have to say that I NEVER plan on what I wear to church. I wake up Sunday morning, grab whatever dress or skirt I am in the mood to wear and slap it on. It just happened that this year Pentecost Sunday was also Mother’s Day and I had a new blue dress that I was planning to wear, so I didn’t think twice about wearing red. Then on Friday, the pastor sent an email, again encouraging everyone to wear red and I got to thinking oh man, I don’t want to be THE only person NOT wearing red. Upon perusing my closet, I had two choices. I could wear a Christmas sweater with Nutcrackers embroidered on it or a Victoria’s Secret nightie, both of them soooo not appropriate~! I really did NOT want to go out and buy something new to wear just for this one occasion. Then in the back of my closet I found a red blouse that was kind of casual, but I could add a nice dressy sweater and basically it was better than my other options. I thought GREAT I can wear it with a black skirt. Then I realized that my only plain black skirt was at the dry cleaners which of course had already closed! incREDible I had plain black pants, but my mom always to me to wear a skirt or dress to church as wearing pants was disrespectful. And I thought just great, it’s Mother’s Day and I will be totally going against something my mom’s advice! Pentecost Sunday arrives and I put on my red blouse and black pants scared that the flames of the Holy Spirit are going to crash down on me and strike me dead for wearing pants to church! As I am eating breakfast, I spill some egg right smack on the front of my blouse! incREDible I have nothing else to wear, what am I going to do?!?! I run to the sink and wash the egg off; of course I now have a HUGE wet spot on the front of my shirt. Michael is now waiting by the door cause it’s time to leave, he who only had to put on a stupid red tie to qualify for HIS contribution to wearing red! No way am I grabbing the Christmas sweater or the VS nightie and I don’t have time to turn on the iron, wait for it to warm up and then iron my blouse. incREDible So, I grab my hair dryer and blast away at my chest. It dries it really fast but now I have this HUGE zone of demarcation on the front of my blouse outlining just where the water stain was! incREDible Michael is STILL waiting so out the door we go, with me being totally self-conscious about the stain and the pants. As we pull into the parking lot I see ALL these people NOT wearing red. Hey what’s up with that?!?! Didn’t they get the email? How come they didn’t feel the need to wear red but I did? Before we entered the church, I ran over and fill out a name tag and slap it right there on front of my chest where the stain was. Hello my name is JackieAnn check out my chest and my stain!! As we are entering the church, the greeters graciously tell the woman in front of us, who was NOT wearing red, that it was ok ‘because she was wearing red lipstick. Oh man, if I had known that MAKEUP would have counted I would have had NO problem with that AND I could have worn my new dress. incREDible Grumbling I sit down and notice almost ¾ of the people wearing red, and it did look really awesome The service, as always was very uplifting and it ALMOST made me less self-conscious. But then because it was Mother’s Day, the children’s choir sang a special song. Well they looked so precious and sounded so sweet that as any normal mom would do, it brought tears to my eyes. Ok so I cried! And of course a couple of the tears, dropped from my cheeks on to my name tag, which in turn smeared the ink and then leaked on to my blouse!! incREDible Fortunately at that point the sermon started. The focus was on being a follower of Jesus. And it got me thinking. Just WHY was I soooo upset about having to wear red? Granted it’s not THE most flattering color on me. Then I realized the main reason I was sooooo upset was because I was used to deciding for myself what I wanted to wear to church, as opposed to someone else telling me what to wear. And I got to thinking just how many OTHER times in my life I had done what ~I~ wanted to do, instead of first praying and listening to what Jesus had planned for me and what He wanted me to do. incREDible
Between the stains of the egg, the tears and the ink, that red blouse is waaay beyond repair. But I am happy to say that ~I~ am not beyond repair. And I thank the Holy Spirit for not burning me alive for wearing pants to church, but for revealing to me that I DO need to follow Jesus in His Word and His guidance, because He has soooo much to teach me and the amount I have to learn is just incREDible.