Theme thursday - Borders and a Pearl of the Word of God

The Thursday theme is 'borders' at this challenge blog today.

I added some borders to this card by punching out two strips of paper lace.



I never usually use this color but I really like it. I saw this stamp used in such a nice way a while back and the effect is achieved by inking up your stamp with distress ink and then spraying a little water over the top before stamping.



This is a photo of the gorgeous roses (50 of them) I received from my sweet hubby today, just to encourage me, he said....
The florists name for this bunch is 'Indian Summer'.

PEARL of the WORD

I'm going to share something today in which God taught me a good lesson about His wisdom! It's just a small example but they are all worth learning from in discipleship!
You could call me a simple girl... for me truth is truth and I don't let much get in between. But I am still learning that truth without Love, is a very cold truth and Love without truth is not worth much either!

So what does the Bible say about this and how do we apply it in a wise way in our daily lifes? I used to think that I would rather have a row than hide the truth - somehow that still appeals to me - to get 'stuff' out in the open, to be transparent, to let nothing get between me, God and other people. But 'stuff' happens, and we learn by it.

Here is the Bible verse from James 3:17

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy."

OK, here is the scene. My DH was in Cyprus and I was alone in the office with his secretary who I have known for four years. She is French, a Christian of course and we have had good times together. Due to circumstances in her life she is going through a very hard time and just had three weeks sick leave. Officially we start at 9 o'clock. The first day she was back to work she was there working before I arrived and I love that sort of enthusiasm! But the following days she started getting later and later and it started irritating me.... Thursday morning I thought, right, truth is truth, I am going to say something about it because she had been late in the past and we had better not make a habit of it.

WRONG.. I got the full blast and instead of feeling better about saying the truth I suddenly felt very bad and realized that I had caused tension between us. It lasted two hours. My husband called around 11 o'clock and could hear on my voice that something was wrong, so I told him. Here's what you do, he said to me, you are going to go to her, put your hand on her shoulder and say you are sorry - that is applying the Cross to your life, to allow peace to reign in the office again. GULP - me?? But I was right!
I had to fight off some pride but I did it and what happened?? She melted on the spot - Oh no, she said, I was wrong and I should never had reacted so aggressively - she just couldn't stop saying sorry to me!! We felt instantly better and the peace was restored in the office.

So what am I learning here - that wisdom is firstly pure (my irritation should have been dealt with first) then peaceful (it really wasn't my responsibility and blessed are the peace-makers), then gentle, reasonable.. full of mercy!! It is an application of the Cross, that will choose to deny itself instead of claiming my right of 'being right'. Truth without love is hard.

I believe that if I cannot say the truth in love than I just might as well keep my mouth shut and deal with my own heart first before the Lord in prayer!

Love without truth is just as wrong - but that will be for another day.