Kids + Canvas By: Dani Russell

Featured

When you’re unhappy, ask yourself why.

For me I was unhappy because I didn’t like the way my life was going so I thought if I control it I can steer it in a more safe and dependable direction. I can go to college and get a stable job and paid myself financially. And be set for life. But soon after those thoughts gave way to action I became consumed with those ideas and God’s role in my life took on the small burner on the back of the stove no one likes.. Not even the large back one… How sad and pathetic? Before I even realized what was happening I took my eyes off God the one who really pads my life and started thinking about all the things I could do to ensure that I never found myself financially distraught or physically dependent on another person again.

Don’t get me wrong when I look at my present situation with carnal eyes it scares me. A lot of people wouldn’t see themselves ever getting into this position where I am. But God led me here and I truly believe that. If he had led me to go to college and get a degree and be what the world seems as successful then believe me that path would’ve been the first one I took. But instead, I became a homemaker, financially dependent on one very modest income from my husband. Whom has had his struggles with trusting the Lord in the past and as a result has made some very unwise financial decisions. But so have I. I took my eyes off God and looked at everything we DIDNT have and it took us on a long dreary tear stained road to get where I am now – just thankful and grateful. And watching God miraculously restore everything we allowed the enemy to steal from us by looking in the flesh eyes and not in Gods eyes.

Wow that took a Detour! Back to the topic. I’ve been in a funk for the last three months. Angry and bitter and on edge and not really Knowing why. I was recently let go of a job right before COVID-19 hit and my former boss gave me a number of reasons why I wasn’t the best candidate for employment with him, (which didn’t surprise me as I was like the 9th person in a year he had hired) but one thing he said really hit home and made me sit down and reevaluate my life. He said I didn’t have enough patience with his clients. Me?! Not have enough patience?! Do they not know me??

Yes. They did know me. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Not the me I thought I was, but the me I presented to them. Turns out I didn’t know me. I didn’t realize how I had been acting as a result of all of this unhappiness and bitterness, it was pouring out onto everyone I encountered. Like poison ivy.

I was horrified. Embarrassed really. They didn’t get to see the person who God made me to be. They saw who I made me to be because I took my eyes off The Lord and yet again focused on everything I didn’t get have… as if I didn’t learn this lesson the last time!

I considered never working again. I considered crawling under a rock and never going in public again. But then I stilled myself before the Lord and I asked him- for days actually- to show me the root of my anger. And finally he said to me, after days of silence, which should’ve been my first sign right? He said to me, “You’re in control.” And with that I begrudgingly asked him to forgive me for taking control of my life yet again for the umpteenth time.

After I asked Him to forgive me I felt a weight lift off my chest. As if He finally took over the burden of being God of my life again. (IMAGINE THAT!!) I asked God why I have such a problem with this. And he told me “Fear”

So here is what I’ve learned.

Fear is the catalyst for needing to control your life. You really can’t control your life, you really just have to go with the flow, but fear will make you realize the raging waves around you and the danger you appear to be in. And instead of riding those waves fear will paralyze you in the middle of the raging river and if you’re stiff as a board you can’t flow with the waves. You’ll be crushed by them.

What causes fear you ask?

Lack of Trust in God.

BOOM. 💥

Now I sit in the horror of the truth that I fully love God with all my heart but don’t fully trust Him. WOAH. How can that even be possible? It can’t be.

So I’m writing this to you today my friends to let you know, when you start feeling unhappy with where your life is going. When you start feeling anxious or angry in general and can’t figure out why. When you feel out of control.

Realize you were never in control but the One who created the universe is in control and He looks out for your best interests daily. He is too kind to ignore your troubles. But He is also too Good to keep you from going down roads you are adamant to go down without Him.

And so to end my post, here is a list of things YOU CAN control, that won’t interfere with God’s plan in your life. So when you feel the need to control something in your life to get driven results, start here, and stay out of God’s way in the main stream of your life.

Things YOU CAN control:

How much you read the Bible

How much you pray.

How connected you stay to His Presence.

Your emotions 💥🤯 (ikr? Big one for me!)

How much you pray with your spouse or kids.

Your weight

Your health

Your fitness

How much you eat

WHAT you eat.

What you wear (within financial means and stay true to your God given identity)

What color your nails are

How you wear your makeup and/or hair.

What projects you can complete.

How much quality time you spend with your spouse or kids.

How thankful you are.

How charitable you are. (Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you in this area of you feel anxiety about giving)

How “there” for your friends you are.

How encouraging and uplifting you are.

Featured

So I Watched A Movie.

First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.”
— Octavia Butler

I watched a movie last night.

It wasn’t one that intentionally glorified the Lord.

It wasn’t a movie that I would’ve told people I watched because the old me was terrified and controlled by all of the opinions of the Sanhedrin of Facebook.

I’m so profoundly joyful to be free from the bondage of what other people think of me after 29 long, agonizing, mentally taxing, and physically burdening years of yoking myself to peoples opinions of me.

I watched a movie last night that didn’t intentionally glorify the Lord but – you see- it actually did.

See God can make the ugliest most hate filled fowl mouthed creations and make them beautiful. I know because He did it for me.

But you see, even though this reckless hellion met Jesus, and cleaned up her act, Jesus didn’t touch my insecurities. Jesus didn’t heal my depression. Or my wounds from years of trauma and abuse.

My outlook was a joyous one now and I was full of hope but my huge gaping keloid scars were not instantaneously sanctified to a prim-and-proper-Mary-Poppins-esque being.

See Jesus didn’t touch those areas, not because He didn’t want to. Not because he isn’t sovereign. But because I had NO IDEA how to let Him. He always desired to heal those innermost sensitive areas of my life that I locked up and threw away the key to. But in His extreme gentleman-like nature, He will not touch things you don’t give to Him. That is not consensual. I could ask that He free me but if I was held captive only in my mind- much like a grown horse tied to a cinder block- then I was the only one who needed to do anything- not Him. I just had to apply what He had already done at the cross.

And as He loved me through even more mess. As I watched my best friend – my grandmother die from two hours away- hopelessly- and as I lost my child in my womb three days later. As I watched my husband grieve silently and blow after blow at life we didn’t know how to process, we just piled it all on top of the cinderblock we were chained to – until what we once could move and didn’t realize it, we now couldn’t possibly move on our own.

I watched our marriage go down the drain. I watched our children grow resentful. I watched us fall from grace and be humiliated by the thought of the gossip from my own family and others and from the thought of the opinions of people.

See, I lived in a facade. On the outside we had it all. We were everything everyone wanted to be. But on the inside we were prisoners in our own minds. Prisoners to each other. Prisoners to others. Prisoners to our own nasty judgmental negative thoughts. Prisoners to lenders because we bought into the lie of having more things means you’re more successful in life.

I watched everything be seemingly ruined – and as the dust settled on our heap of rubble we tearfully pushed the pile to the feet of Jesus and asked him to do something – anything with it. Salvage what you can. You can have it all. And from that moment forward we watched Him smile as He picked up the pieces to our broken life and He molded them back together in a restoration that was even more beautiful than the original piece ever could’ve been.

And to top it all off last night, as I’m layin in bed, I watch a movie- that didn’t intentionally glorify the Lord, but it spoke to my spirit. And in this movie- although sprinkled with the colorful language from my former life- I saw Jesus reaching out to me and telling me that the last remnants of the judgmental mindset that I had on me were not of anyone else but the enemy in my mind. And as I realize that and trash them as they come, my life will be so much more revitalized, joyful, beneficial. HEALTHY. SANCTIFIED.

You see I’ve brought two more children in this world since we miscarried our McKenzie and lost my sweet grandmother. I never thought it would take 6 years to overcome all of this, But my natural body had not stopped being depressed. When you’re grieving, you form Habits. And so that even when you’re not depressed anymore you become so used to those habits that it becomes a part of your life. And it spreads like wild fire. Those habits become your children’s habits. Your husbands habits. And before long you’re begging your family to go camping when they just want to veg out in their free time and you realize you’ve been a slave in nowhere else but in your own mind.

And as I learned what God had to say about me in His word, inch by inch I no longer saw the former ideas of myself as correct. You see, once The Creator of The Universe defines you, no one else’s definition of you seems to really add up. Not even your own. So piece by piece I cut and pasted His words on my heart, over the huge scars, over the pain, over the hurt, over the gaping holes and black rotten negativity. And piece by piece He allowed me to help with restoring my own heart, that I had given to Him in hopes of the Master Artist being able to salvage pieces of my own work. Instead He made something totally new- totally better- totally breathtaking. A true trash-from-treasure masterpiece. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. He restored our life.

And so I watched a movie last night that ended up being a magnet pulling out the last fibers of negativity in my life and even though it wasn’t meant to be religious or glorify the Lord I am so thankful Jesus is able to speak through any medium He chooses that he chose a movie closely resembling my former self to speak right to my new self and elevate me closer to him all the more.

The moral of the story? There are several. But I’ll let The Master Artist reveal in your heart the overarching theme here. Because in life, as in art, everyone interprets the subject matter differently. And that is to be celebrated- not condemned.

Craft of The Day – Memory Verse Puzzle

School is in full swing at the Russell household! We’re learning our memory verses already. Coming up with easy and cost efficient ways to make memorizing fun, we came home with this idea!

We just wrote out the words on index cards in bright colors and scrambled them up!

You can even set out an hourglass timer and make it competitive for added excitement!

We got a Dollar Tree pointer to be really extra when we say the verse out loud. 😂

The kids love it!

If I can do it, you can do it too!

Happy Crafting!

$17 Old Play Kitchen Makeover!

I so wanted a new kitchen for the babies! With a 2 and 4 year old homeschooling is mainly play learning. Buuuutttttt my bank account scoffed at me and said “yeah maybe not!” So I set out to figure out what I could do with the resources I have!

So I totally forgot to take a before picture, but the kitchen we had was a 2011 Step 2. We got it when my oldest (now 10) was 2, so you can imagine the level of decrepit-ness we were working with here! I mean this thing stayed on my Dad’s Front porch in the elements for at least two years and was in the kids playhouse for four years before that. G-R-O-S-S was an UNDERSTATEMENT! But for the sake of this post here’s a stock photo of what it looked like ten years ago! 🤣

As you’ve probably guessed, the stickers had all cracked off. The accoutrements were all missing. There is dirt and cobwebs galore.

But my daughter and I wiped that bad boy down and started painting! (next time I’ll take pictures of the process!)

So since I didn’t think of taking the pictures of the process I’ll tell you what we did!

We took the entire set apart. We painted the cabinets high gloss black and the counter high gloss white. We painted all the doors and faucet Silver! I used black puffy paint to repaint the back stove burner for extra texture because were big on sensory play here!

We let it dry and put it back together. I bought a chalk board for $3 from Dollar General and hot glued twine on the hook.

For the chalk cup we painted an Ice Cube Gum container silver and hot glued twine for the hook!

We painted over the faux window and used the Cricut to cut out a vinyl tile. And we got a little bamboo plant from the dollar tree and screwed it into the ledge and hot glued the plant into the pot!

We even made some salt and pepper shakers with dollar general toothpick holders! Just stick some colored paper scraps in and hot glue the tops on!

Here’s the final results of all our hard work!

We are so excited about this transformation! And I promise to take more pics of the process!

In all we spent $19 on the makeover and I’ll break it down here:

$13 spray paint

$2 toothpick holders

$3 chalk board

$1 bamboo plant

If I can do it, you can do it too!

Happy Crafting!

Morning Thankfulness

This morning I woke up to the pitter-patter of little feet joyfully scampering to my bed side.

Somewhere in the throes of the sea of adulthood we big children lose our simple joyfulness and it is my new goal in life to get it back urgently – gracefully.

I think I’ll start finding my joy again in the lavishness of the simplicity of life. In Taking things slower so I can see all the beautiful details. In having abundant grace for those I love the most – as much as I do those who I don’t know. -We often take those closest for grated the most.

I think I’ll start to find my joy in being abundantly thankful for the simplest of things, like my morning devotion however short it may be. Or the eager twinkle in my dogs eyes when I greet them and let them out to chase the squirrels in the morning. Or the untimely wake up call of pittter pattering feet rushing to my bedside and the eager whispers in my ear.

I am now in love with the rushing sound of little voices calling my name in a loud whisper. So as to not wake their Daddy- but just wake me, “Momma, can I hold you?”

I think I’ll forget the past where I wasn’t so grateful and I was more jealous of their father who could sleep in, and I think I’ll relish in the grace of now. That I can still enjoy these small lush beautiful moments despite my previous attitudes.

I love how my little babes all pile on top of me for morning snuggles. Kicking and squirming, their soft supple skin gliding over my face. I choose not to call it suffocating. But beautiful.

As they grab my face and put their nose on my nose to lock eyes with me. They make sure I’m awake to loudly whisper “I love you. I’m hungry.” Their green and blue eyes mischievously sparkle in the lush lavish love they pour on to me every morning.

I think I’ll start each day being thankful for such extravagant grace from our Heavenly Father that even though I have not been always deserving, I am enough for my little tribe.

And I can make it through this day.

With thankfulness and gratefulness in my heart for the things that REALLY matter.

We just have to SLOW DOWN to see it. ❤️

My Cahaba Lillies

By: Danielle Russell

You are my Cahaba lillies

Pure and white.

Extraordinary and beautiful beyond compare.

Extremely rare because you’re so hard to grow.

You require extra conditions.

But anything as brilliant and magnificent as you will come with difficulties

– the necessary dues of being your keeper – To which I will gladly, patiently pay every time.

You make your own crown,

you don’t wait for someone to anoint you as royalty.

It’s in your DNA.

Forgive me, flower, for the times I was reluctant to care for you. The times my attitude did not reflect my devotion to you. Forgive me for complaining about the extra conditions you require that make you so rare and priceless to me.

You and the rocks you’re nestled into are the only constant thing in this Swift, rapid, ever changing life we live.

And Time – like the river you grow in.

It never slows down.

It waits for no one.

So I will cherish you, my lillies of the river, until I can keep you no more.

When Raising The Next Generation, Remember This!

I’ve been cleaning the house all morning. Well… we (my husband and I) have cleaned the house all week really.. And let me tell ya! It’s such a tiresome thing to do! The work never seems to end with three children. There’s always interruptions. There’s always more mess to clean up. Someone inevitably ends up hurt and I have to stop and rock them for five minutes when all I can think of is the endless list of chores that has to be done by this evening. It tends to get very weary VERY quickly for all parents even if you have the best intentions at heart.

After cleaning my sons room with him and standing my ground to a very adamant two year old who does NOT want to help.. We were finally done with that task, and moving on to about forty more when I sat down to take a break. I open up Facebook for a moment of escape and scroll through the daily feed. I came across a Bible Verse my friend jokingly posted about staying away from fools (due to the COVID-19 crisis) I was looking up the verse in my Bible app when I came across this! (Thanks Jon! 😉)

– This EPIC verse that made my heart stand still, and for a moment everything fell into place –

Before I was bombarded by cries and screams from two children whom I offered to feed just minutes ago and are now begging for food as if they’ve been starved… 🤦🏼‍♀️ ahh, everything goes on hold when you are a parent! Anyway, The epic verse goes like this:

WHOA!! 🤯🎁 I was almost moved tears by this verse which stilled my heart almost completely… if it weren’t for my kids in full whine mode. I put my phone down to heat up food and with one kid following me everywhere I turned, and the other running through the house crying “I want fooooooooddddd IM HUNNNGRYYYYY.” I’m just about to yell, “I NEED SILENCE!!” 😤😭

And it hits me. If you want an abundant harvest, this is the mess you’ll deal with.

From the moment each child was born we committed them to the Lord.. We spent months decorating nurseries, praying for, and then over each child, and planning outfits, baby dedications, picture seshes, and hospital stays. We were so abundantly grateful for each of our blessings. BUT.. We also had this idea that when we got married and owned our own home it would look like one of those fun eclectic colorful Pinterest homes you see and envy. And we THOUGHT we could teach our children how to be respectful and clean up after themselves and we could have the best of both worlds. (Let’s all laugh together shall we? 😂) The only thing is, in reality, no one can have their cake and eat it too. The reality is that one of those dreams was from the Lord and the other was from me. ERGO- not God.

Whoever said Cleanliness was next to Godliness never read that from the Bible. Sure it’s less stressful to be in a clean environment, but is it less stressful on everyone in the family to maintain the said clean environment?? 🤔

And to add to that, My children will either remember how I treated them harshly and angrily because I was at my wits end with the messes that they ignored along with my repeated requests for them to clean the messes.. OR… they will remember how I calmly redirected their attention and cleaned up the messes together, even though I didn’t partake in making the messes with them. One of those is taking on a Christ like attribute of gentleness and the other isn’t. (my next blog post will be on Gentleness!)

MAN!! How could I get SO MUCH GRACE from ONE PASSAGE of scripture that I wasn’t even intending to read?? -That’s how God works!

So today, I wanted to share with you, if you’re feeling fed up about the messes in your most likely quarantined home. If you feel like you’re drowning in children and can’t escape them. If you feel as though you’ll never live up to the unrealistic expectations of Pinterest homes. If you project the messes of your home or your kids unwillingness to clean onto yourself as a failure. (please don’t do that!) If you beat yourself up about your endless chore lists and set deadlines for yourself to complete things just to wear yourself out.

If the story of Mary and Martha with Jesus in Luke 10 seems to resonate with your “I must do all the things and I must do them NOW!” Mentality. Take this time to really ask God what it looks like to CHILL. Just be still. And know he’s working all things out for His Glory. Ask Him what that looks like on a daily basis. Ask Him to show you how to see what He sees and not what we see. Honestly I don’t know what it means to be still yet. I’m learning that too.

I need you to KNOW that no matter what, we are raising the next generation of preachers, teachers, apostles, prophets, and evangelists. And in order to have that abundant harvest we prayed for over our children, we will have a mess or two to clean up along the way! ❤️

Dirt Roads, Dads, and Dead Coyotes.

So, I felt led to share this deeply personal story today for someone who needs to hear this.

When I was 13 and young to the world, I wasn’t wise (obviously) to the ways of boys and just wanted to have fun. Everyone was my friend. I knew no boundaries, was rebellious and was very naive. My mother struggled with alcoholism. One night, after my parents’ nasty divorce, it was her weekend to pick me up and make the two hour drive back to her mother’s house where she lived. I was prepared and hopeful to see my beloved Grandparents this particular weekend. But I got off the bus and much to my surprise, she was drunk and In no shape to drive. Two neighborhood boys no more than 15 years old persuaded her to use her car and wanted to show me “a dead coyote” on a rural dirt road. You catch my drift? There really was a dead coyote, But it wasn’t their only intention to show me that. So as the car came to stop and we spent LITERALLY 30 seconds looking at this coyote, I was ready to go back, but one boy had other plans for advancement and I was not ready for this. As the other boy got out of the car and left us alone my heart dropped to my stomach and I knew there was pretty much no escaping this scenario I had gotten myself into. SCARED. TO. DEATH. All I could think of was how I wished I wouldn’t have fallen for this. When, all of a sudden the other boy jumps in the car yelling someone was coming down the road. REALLY FAST. The boy with the intentions yelled “STEP ON IT! GO!” As we floored it immediately because this car was gaining on us. I hung on for dear life trying not to cry. As we were speeding down this dirt road (going at LEAST 60) this car kept gaining on us. The driver was scared to death barely having a permit, and this other car had to be going 90 MPH. It caught us in record time. As the car approached us it was swerving trying to run us off the road!! Finally the driver slowed down and the other car swooped around us. It was like a scene in a West Texas Horror Movie. I KNEW we were all about to get murdered, the suddenly I recognized the car as it passed us and slammed on the brakes making us stop. Out Jumped the very large man most of you know to be my dad. Who yanked me out of the car and shoved me in his car and drive us home. It was one of THE. MOST. AWKWARD. MOMENTS. EVER. (Mostly because I think he thought I knew what I was doing but I really didn’t until it was too late.) I was in ALOT of trouble. But MAN was I GLAD to see HIM! Even if he was SUPER MAD at me and grounded me. I cried but not because he caught me, it was because he saved me. (And his spankings hurt.)

The point Im trying to make to you is that’s how our Father in Heaven is Y’all! HE RELENTLESSLY PURSUES US BECASUE HE LOVES US AND CARES DEEPLY FOR US! If an earthly father can put himself in danger to pursue his daughter, how much more would our Father in Heaven pursue us? He sent His Son to die for us. And someone tonight is in this position of needing to be ransomed by the Father. If I didn’t feel this way I DEFINTITELY wouldn’t have shared all this. All you have to do is ask Him and He’s there. Love yall. (And no, nothing happened other than I got wise to boys, and thoroughly embarrassed! don’t judge me!)

About Me🤪


Motherhood is an art form.

Hi! Welcome to my blog! My name is Danielle, you can call me Dani! I am fearfully and wonderfully made and so are you! Here’s some fast facts about me: I love Jesus. I am the wife to a wonderful man named Peyton. The mother to three beautiful children, Skylor, Sarah, and Tripp. And a dog Mom to two precious babies Toby and Abbie. I am an Artist. An Entrepreneur is (Sort of..lol) . An Adventure seeker. And an Empath. I LOVE children! They are life’s most pure and joyful gift from God! I also love puppies, flowers, worship music, camping, traveling, and making art. I’m Types 7 and 2 on the Enneagram all the way! Life is just one big adventure and I’m here to help! I hope you are blessed by this blog! ❤️