I am down to the last few days before my soap class...... more soap to make.

I have really learned a lot about my craft in the last few weeks.  I have actually put a name to being an artist for the last few years. It was something that didn't not come easy for me for a number of years, as a child my dream was to become an artist, that was after I found out that the dream I had of being a secretary was probably not going to happen, as I could only type 8 words a minute.  I do thank the Sheriff's office for hours, and hours, of transcript typing for amending that to the acceptable level of 80+ plus that I can manage now.  I left the sheriff's office knowing my heart was well and trulying in the realm of being a life long mother and wife, something I have manage to have a hand in all of my life even as a child in many respects.  I was taught all of the home crafts as a child, well if you don't count tatting, and since my mom abhorred it so I have a maybe misaligned fear of even learning it but I digress.  I have been for the most part all of my life a self teacher, even in the end I had to teach myself how to actually type.  I am an artist with a broad scope of knowledge, a little about a lot and a lot more about some crafts.  Oh, how I hated that word for many a year.  I have come to embrace it but it took a lot of learning, understand and even some grace to get there.  I for a long time saw the word crafter as so belittling.  I had to really grow inside to understand that I was the bigot when it came to that word.  The people praising me for being a crafter were not looking down at me but complimenting the time and talent I had.  I saw it all as art and was insulted when I was called a crafter but it in the end that was my problem and not theirs.  I finally figured it out and embraced the Artist/Crafter title, with some hesitance, I never think that what I do is good enough.  Maybe it came from my faith and my dad's faith, nothing we do is ever going to be perfect in the sight of God, no one is perfect and perhaps I sought works for to long in my life not knowing that works were not what saves in the end only Grace is capable of that.  *sigh* better late than never.  Grace is so much less stressful than works don't you think, it allows you to do things out of love and not as a rat on a treadmill so to speak, and in the end it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of you but God, and he loves you just as you are, never more and never less..... Okay back on track.

I have learned in the last few weeks so much more about my craft of soap making, I make good soap and for the most part always have but now I understand it so much more, love it so much more and know I can strive to do better. No, not as a work to something bigger and better but as a person enveloped in the love of doing it just because if makes me happy and the joy of creating it.  I am so excited about sharing just a tiny bit of that in my soap class.  Can you imagine if one person, even just one caught the soap making loving bug?  How wondrous that would be.   I hope to see that spark in even just one eye of the people there, the birth of a new love so to speak.  I can't wait to share this love of mine with those who come, I know most of them will never make another bar of soap but the possibility of one finding that love is wondrously exciting.......

I made ducky soap two days ago and it was adorable and awesome from the get go, a creation that I created, well if someone else has I haven't seen them so I can claim them as mine in my little speck of humanity.  I popped them from their molds yesterday and they really are stinkingly cute.  I am making more today so as I have enough for anyone who wants them for Easter.  Can you imagine teaching a child to love soap, oh, the possibilities that entails......  

I pray that you are living a life in Grace.  Works are good, and needful, but the pressure and heartache of never knowing that Grace is the only way to God is truly a life of undeserved dispair.  God wants your love, your joy and he wants to love you and does, just as you are.  We does want you to continue to grow and become a disciple but he will not love you more for it. He loves you and wants you to believe and seek him, so he can show you his love.  Seek and you shall find... tomorrow.