Sometimes midweek can be a low point. It's Wednesday evening here on the west coast and I feel tired and flu-ish. I just had the idea of posting midweek blessings. For me to do a mid-week blessing on a site dedicated to visual blessing it seems a little redundant,"duh." But I'm pretty new to blogging and don't yet have any regular challenges for myself or others like

A Collage A Day

,

Project 365

or something I do on a specific day of the week, month etc. I'm a "toe in the water first" kind-of-gal, so I'm going to test the waters with posting a specific kind of blessing mid-week through the month of February. My criteria will be this: a blessing I've made to give to someone. My hope is that it will bless you too.

I didn't know who this visual blessing was for when I started it, but I knew it was someone who was having a hard time resting. Resting could be having peace, sleeping, or something similar, I wasn't sure. I wanted the colors to feel peaceful so I picked this printmaking paper I had painted a few years earlier and didn't use yet. I had scanned the "rest" page out of a dictionary and transferred it onto the printmaking paper. The verse from Hebrews was made using a gel transfer method.

The circle prayer was patterned after a kind of prayer I read about this kind of prayer in the book,

Celtic Daily Prayer

(p. 297-8). It is called a Caim prayer (when one does not know what to pray). One way to use this prayer is to draw a circle and then follow the circle with your finger as you say the prayer. This symbolizes the all encompassing, encircling love and protection of God.

Circle me Lord,

Keep peace within,

and turmoil without.

Circle me Lord,

Keep hope within,

and despair without.

Circle me Lord,

Keep comfort near,

and discouragement afar.

Valerie Sjodin, copyright 2011