Do You Have a Hidden Agenda?

‎2 Cor 4:2


We have renounced hidden agendas (employing a little bit of the law in an attempt to “balance” out grace); we have distanced ourselves from any obscure craftiness to manipulate God’s word to make it mean what it does not say! With truth on open display in us, we highly recommend our lives to every one’s conscience! Truth finds its most authentic and articulate expression in human life. This beats any doctrinal debate!

~Mirror Bible Translation (and no, this isn't a perfect translation...and no, I do not use it for study purposes...and no, Du Toit is not a universalist...and yes, repentance is necessary - mostly, repentance from dead works, whether they be "sinning" dead works or "sainting" dead works - and salvation from our sin condition is necessary, and has been accomplished through no other means but Christ.)

And The Winner Is....

...so...I prepared for the Big Moment:

We are so high tech around here.  No, seriously.  Don't believe that.  Actually, we kick it old school.

All the names...in a cute little Anthropologie-esque bowl... (if you don't know Anthro, where have you been?)

This drawing is legally certified by my daughter Hannah McConnell.  She drew the name of the winner.  Everyone acquainted with me had deep concerns that I'd draw my own name.  (Brownies were involved in this giveaway...)

And the winner is....

LIZ!!!!!!!

Liz, Maria Kear will be emailing you privately, to get your mailing address.  Sistah, your brownies will be on their way.

I'm jealous.

And hey...stay tuned.  Call the neighbors.  There will be another giveaway here NEXT WEEK!  And you will want one.  And your odds are GREAT at winning, since I haven't gone all "Pioneer Woman" on y'all.

(Pioneer Woman does a lot of giveaways, but she has, like, 30,000 followers on her blog!)

Aren't you glad I'm not a household name?

I Was Inspired...Poppies, Friends, and Brownies

Yesterday morning, I kept a sort of mentoring appointment.  I say "sort of" because she lets me coach her via Skype, and she's a fun girlfriend, so it doesn't feel so much like an "appointment" officially.

We talked about souls and their restoration.  I was so inspired by our time together.  There were tears.  There was laughter.  I then thought about the things we talked over all day long...and late yesterday evening, this popped out of my heart:

available in my shop  

I'm "feeling it" so much...this truth about soul restoration (see yesterday's re-post from 2008...you can see these are things I've long lingered over)...I'm almost sure that my next video weblog, in my series "True W.E.L.L. Being", will be full of some of the things my friend and I discussed.

Also, don't forget that tomorrow is the big day for the giveaway, in collaboration with Maria Kear and her new business, Send Out Cards!  (There are brownies involved.  You will want to leave your comment here....and then Facebook it, or tweet it, so that you can be MORE certain of obtaining said brownies...)

...a picture of  Send Out Card's brownies...not the exact ones you'll be getting, if you win.  Yours will be fresher.  Sorry if you haven't eaten yet.  Or you have, and now you want brownies, too.  So sorry. 

Well, my day has not been the cheeriest.  I won't bore you with drama or details, but suffice it to say, I need my soul restored.  Yet again.  Nothing terrible has happened...today, I was simply reminded that I am living in a state of bliss lately, and it does get interrupted now and then with some familiar sources of stress and frustration.

No matter.  Big things or small things, God is in the soul restoring business.

...by still waters, friends...he leads your soul there.

He Maintains My Soul

(a re-post from the archives...enjoy...)

"He leads me beside still waters..." a photo taken on our anniversary getaway.

I have been soaking in some old, familiar passages lately. They come to life for me, repeatedly, and bring me great hope and consolation. One of these familiar mainstays is Psalm 23:


The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.


I have been smitten by the phrase, "He restoreth my soul". The concept of stillness has been overtaking my thoughts these days - this whole idea of being still before God, and being still before my circumstances.


You cannot be still without a fully restored soul. A less-than-restored soul is a soul that frets, fears, fumes and flails about for a solution, and panics when no solution is in sight. An unrestored soul is anything BUT still.


You cannot restore your own soul. Such a dilemma...


I bring you good tidings - good news! GOD is fully committed to the full time job of soul restoration. If you look up that precious Hebrew word "restore", you will find a connotation that of "over and over again and again". In fact, I counted up the number of times, (in the mere definition of the Hebrew word "restore"), that the word "again" is utilized:  that word "again" is utilized twenty times in the Hebrew, to define the word RESTORE.


Again and again and again and again and again and....you get the idea. God restores my soul as often as necessary. This "restoring my soul" thing is a Self-designated focus of the Lord of the universe. He considers it His ongoing, daily avocation...the thing He delights to do for me. This Lord is my shepherd....oh, I shall not want!


Over and over, every day, again and again, twenty times a day and more, the Lord wants to refresh and revive you. He will, time and again, pick up your disheveled soul, dust it off, and set it to rights. He longs to breathe new life into you - right now. And then again. And then again.


Oh saint, do you hear me?


It is his avocation (not by constraint, but willingly He shepherds you, dear one!) to cheer you, enliven you, prod and quicken your spirit. He enjoys rejuvenating you, invigorating you, healing and rebuilding you, and He considers it His good pleasure to do it over and over and again and again and again.


Consider yourself rebuilt and reinstated, oh crumbled soul! Be strengthened, twenty times over, by the very hand of the Good Shepherd.


He restoreth my soul!

Don't Forget...

Don't forget Friday's giveaway...read about it here.  I will try to mention it each day between now and then, but you might want to go ahead and take a moment to give it a looksee.

These are included:

Oh.  my.  dear.  sweet.  salvation.

I repeat, this giveaway includes, but is not limited to, a box of delicious brownies.  Who doesn't want...nay, need, that?

True W.E.L.L. Being (A Video Weblog Series) "I Get That Now"...

A New Collaboration - a Giveaway in Collaboration with Maria Kear and Her New Business, Send Out Cards

I am so blessed to introduce you to a life-long friend of mine (we've been friends pretty much our entire adult lives) Maria Kear. She is coming up just behind me, in terms of the "empty nest"...she will graduate her youngest from their home school next year. In searching for what God would have her do in her next season, she has discovered a new business venture that she's excited about - and I am discovering that God is really giving me a heart to see women succeed in business and ministry and art. So I want to get started exactly where I am (is there anywhere else you can start?) and promote a woman-friend and her business.

 So I have invited my friend Maria to do a giveaway here on my blog! It is a generous giveaway...you will enjoy it, so much, if you win!  We will draw a winner in one week - Friday, July 20th.  If only one person enters, that person wins!  I know Maria - she just loves to have fun with things like this, and is fine with one person or one hundred people entering her giveaway for her new business.

Please note:  I am not a distributor for Send Out Cards.  I receive nothing in exchange for promoting Maria's business.  

Without further ado, may I please introduce to you a lovely lady friend of mine, who is as passionate about the health of the local church as I am - a trustworthy person, who will be a great business woman...Meet Maria Kear!

This is Maria Kear

Hello friends of Sheila Atchley Designs! I’m so blessed to have the opportunity to “meet” you. 




 My name is Maria Kear. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for almost 22 years, and have home schooled my 3 children all the way through. My last one will be a senior next year. It has been one of the greatest journeys and “works” of my life. I am honored to have had the opportunity to teach and train 3 people who will impact the world in their own unique way. I’m in a new season of life and have been praying about what to do with myself….


My good friend Sheila asked me to be her blog guest, because like Sheila, I am a new business owner who is excited about sharing what I do. I love my new business, because at the heart SendOutCards is about showing gratitude simply for the sake of being a blessing. Sure, I am here to build a business, but I understand that we all “reap what we sow”. My heart is to “sow” hospitality and gratitude; to encourage those I meet to be the best they can be in whatever they put their hands to. 




To get the word out about my new business, I will be holding a drawing right here on Sheila Atchley Designs. What I want to gift you with is two-fold. The Grand Prize will be a 30 day membership to use the SendOutCards system to bless 30 people with a real paper card, which SendOutCards prints, stuffs and mails FOR YOU.


I have done this myself, and my heart is forever changed. SendOutCards calls this the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge. 


Added to this (30 days worth of free card giving) I am adding a box of the most delicious brownies you have ever tasted (I’m not exaggerating!).  They are called Chocolate Indulgence Gourmet Fudge Brownie made by Cookietree Bakeries...


...AND a great book I’m almost finished reading called Appreciation Marketing by Tommy Wyatt and Curtis Lewsey

To view a video and get more information regarding the 30 Day Challenge, please visit this website: 


http://www.socgratitude.com/MariaK 


 In addition to the Grand Prize, and because I want you to experience that great feeling of showing someone gratitude, I’m going to gift everyone else with the ability to send 2 free cards to someone you appreciate! 


 You may visit that website by following this link www.sendoutcards.com/MariaK 


 I hate to sound like an info-mercial… but there is no obligation. You may try the system, give me feedback, and if you love it, give it your own 30 day trial. But if you aren’t in love with the idea, I still believe your outlook will be changed in just thinking about others with a heart of gratitude. 


 To enter, I’m asking that you:


1.  Take one second's time to “like” (on my personal facebook page) a video that I’ll post about the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge. https://www.facebook.com/maria.kear  Leave a comment here on this blog, letting me know you did so - that will be one entry.


2.   If you will also tweet “30 Day Gratitude Challenge www.socgratitude.com/MariaK", come back and leave ANOTHER comment here on this blog.  That will be a second entry.  Remember, come back RIGHT HERE, and leave another comment on this blog, and you will be entered again.


3.   AND if you’ll join my good friend Sheila’s blog as a new follower (click "follow this blog" or "join this site" over in the right-hand sidebar), you’ll get a third entry.


4.  If you mention the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge on YOUR blog, with my link http://www.socgratitude.com/MariaK , come back here and leave a comment with your blog URL.  That will get you a FOURTH entry...and you'll probably win.  :-)


Either Sheila or myself will draw a winner one week from today.   I’ll work the details out with the winner by e-mail, or by phone if you want me to contact you that way. One thing I will tell you is that if you sign up for a gift account, no one will pester you! I alone will have your information, and I will not share it with anyone.




 And I will likely send you a card ;)

A Granddaughter Any Day Now!

We are in Sarah's final days of maternity...and I do mean "WE".  Our whole family is in a state of high anticipation.  Our whole church is in high anticipation.  The picture you see, up there, was taken just today.

Isn't she the cutest, most beautiful little momma ever?


I plan on posting pictures of her nursery.  Her sister Hannah designed it, sewed the crib linens, and decorated the room...it is so, so lovely and amazing.

She is due any day now, and I absolutely cannot wait.  My second monkey, Miss Aidyn Esther Howe, will make her appearance, and I have a feeling she is as eager to be held by her Mimi as her Mimi is to hold her.

I'm pretty sure I am the most blessed and highly favored woman on the planet.

Actual Church Life

...when I think of the welfare and health of "the church universal" - her struggles, her flaws, her beauty, her care and tending and preservation, her value and her worth...I have had this place before me.

This one small particular represents the universal whole far more tangibly and accurately, demanding more pressing love and sacrifice and talent and commitment than any idea of the universal.

When I have considered grace, kindness, patience, betrayal or carelessness, devotion and worship, when I consider weariness, ecstatic joy, fresh babies and precious children, I have had in my mind's eye the people of this place, their faces and their words and their smiles and their pain.

I can recall the look of a hundred different daylights on all those faces, the worship postures and body languages of the men and women who have labored here, and those who do labor here to this very day - I can see them, in my mind's eye, tending their little patch of ground, because all of us know that you have to stick and stay to reap your harvest.

Harvest Church.  You have given me the great privilege of living actual, versus imagined, church life.  Your very (seeming) smallness has made you great among churches - your size forces honest connection.

I love you for that.

Post edit:  this piece is a "riff"...it is my improvisational "take"...on a paragraph from a Wendell Barry book of, believe it or not, agrarian essays.  He was writing about the countryside of his native Kentucky.  I thought of the ecclesia.  My mind is at the mercy of its associations.  Likely, no one would ever recognize the similarities...because I took Barry's thoughts on agriculture and culture and definitely re-made them into my own thoughts on the church.  But still...the inspiration was a very direct one, and I meant to say so!   (And no...no one called this to my attention.  I am self-editing, here.  I meant to give credit where credit was due, and simply forgot.)

True W.E.L.L.-Being (A Video Weblog Series)

Oh dear.  I look angry.  I promise, I'm not...

New Design - Might Already Be Sold

...a leather cuff watch...upcycled watch face...hand stained and hand stamped with 1/8 inch metal stamp lettering...trimmed in a brown dotted "torn" fabric, for a great vintage look...

...a side perspective...

...the hand stamping, worn at the wrist.  All you have to do is turn your wrist ever so slightly, and you'll get the message...

...that you are LOVED.

This is the only one like it I've made, so far.  Each watch will be a little different, since each one is hand made and hand stained, and each watch face, and the fabric choices will be different.

This one may have already sold, (post-edit...it in fact did sell...) before I can even get it in the shop.  I'll let you know!

Another Huge-To-Me Beta Launch {My First W.E.L.L. Being Video Weblog}

I'm so Beta, I stare at my own bad self.  And it ain't pretty, what I see.

All I can say to the Lord is, "Allright, already!  I did it!"

All I can say to you is, "Here!  Here you go!"

...and then picture me running out of the room.  It is hard to be brave.  Please be kind.

And The Winner Is...

I wrote down every person who commented - and wrote them down again if they tweeted or Facebooked about Sheila Atchley Designs...

...and the winner is...

Rays of Sunshine!

Please email your mailing address to me privately, and I will get your bag and cuff out to you right away!

Thank you, EVERYONE, for tweeting and Facebooking, thank you for supporting me and for having fun with this.  I want to do more (and better) giveaways in the future - sometimes in collaboration with other businesswomen and artists and shop owners - sometimes a bag or painting of my own.  So "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

And don't forget that my leather cuffs are available in my shop...and soon I'll have a few one-of-a-kind bags available there, too.

Now Offering Prints (on select originals) - and Beta Giveaway Reminder!

For the first time, I am offering prints of select originals...please stay tuned as to which ones!

But to get started, here is a brand new original I've entitled "Beautiful Moments" ~

This is a 10x10 mixed media board canvas, rendered in acrylics, ink, oil pastel, and charcoal, on a ~gorgeous~ background of vintage papers.  The watermark is only there in the photos, and obviously is not on the canvas.  One of the vintage papers I used, is a genuine circa 1940's letter that dropped out of an old art book I bought at the antique store. I am so excited about that letter, love how it peeks through the paint, and so thrilled to use it - the original letter - in this painting!  There are also other antique book pages and vintage papers.  The quote says, "...in a woman's life, as in any work of art, it is the moments that are beautiful...".

(Original quote - I retain rights on all art.)

close-up of a partial watch - alluding to those "Beautiful Moments" of which a woman's life is made...

 ...right hand side of painting...

another perspective...

I am so blessed and excited to get to offer PRINTS of this "Beautiful Moments" original.  Of course, the original will also be available in my shop as well.  And again, stay tuned as to which originals (among the few I have left - I need to get busy painting more) will be offered as prints.  

Don't forget to read about my Beta Launch Giveaway here, and leave a comment to be entered to win the bag and cuff...and if you tweet and/or Facebook about Sheila Atchley Designs, come back and leave me another comment - you'll be entered twice!  This is your last day to enter...because...

...DRAWING IS TOMORROW!

Final Numbers Are In...

...and after all scholarships and a grant, after doing all we can do, we are still several thousand short of needed funds for the first year of college.  How will it happen?  What will God do?  I have no idea.  But I trust Him.

Please agree with me in prayer that God would make a way where there seems to be no way.

Pray with me that I sell lots of art.

This Gospel of Grace

...available in my shop...

This gospel of grace is so not new.  I remember how that some, upon hearing The Preacher preach on the doctrines of grace with the same emphasis as Paul the Apostle preached them (mostly reading the epistles from the pulpit!)...they actually thought he was preaching something out-of-balance and newish.

It was so sad to me, but I was not surprised or upset.  Most, in this generation of Churchianity, have heard little Biblical, New Testament Gospel.  Truly, it is the performance-based Christian who is an unwitting member of the Cult of the Contemporary.  Many a modern-day legalist thinks that just because a dead guy is a dead guy, that makes him a "classic", and his writing a more legitimate source of food for the soul.

Back up, and learn your church history.  Or read Paul's writings instead of Finney or Wesley or even Owen or Chambers, or some rabbi born in 1962.  I know, right?  Novel idea. 

Just as, in Scripture, grace preceded the law (and later superceded it), so it is also in eras and streams of thought in the Christian faith A.D.  The doctrines of grace are foundational, they have always preceded a spiritual awakening; and excellent treatises on the Finished Work of Christ pre-date the writings of many a  dead moralist.

But in direct contrast to what I just said, I am going to share my latest "underlined bit"...from the writings of Charles Spurgeon.  Even though he joins the ranks of the Dead Guys, he was no moralist.  He was unimpressed with any man obsessed with his own sanctification and self improvement.  Spurgeon was Gospel obsessed...

...but he, though long since dead, is perilously close to being a contemporary source. Still, his sources streamed from far more original founts - the Pauline epistles and the writings of the early church fathers.

For your epic enjoyment:

"He hath commanded his covenant forever." 


 The Lord's people delight in the covenant itself. It is an unfailing source of consolation to them so often as the Holy Spirit leads them into its banqueting house and waves its banner of love. They delight to contemplate the antiquity of that covenant, remembering that before the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round, the interests of the saints were made secure in Christ Jesus. 




It is peculiarly pleasing to them to remember the sureness of the covenant, while meditating upon "the sure mercies of David." They delight to celebrate it as "signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well." It often makes their hearts dilate with joy to think of its immutability, as a covenant which neither time nor eternity, life nor death, shall ever be able to violate--a covenant as old as eternity and as everlasting as the Rock of ages. 




They rejoice also to feast upon the fulness of this covenant, for they see in it all things provided for them. God is their portion, Christ their companion, the Spirit their Comforter, earth their lodge, and heaven their home. They see in it an inheritance reserved and entailed to every soul possessing an interest in its ancient and eternal deed of gift. Their eyes sparkled when they saw it as a treasure-trove in the Bible; but oh! how their souls were gladdened when they saw in the last will and testament of their divine kinsman, that it was bequeathed to them! 




More especially it is the pleasure of God's people to contemplate the graciousness of this covenant. They see that the law was made void because it was a covenant of works and depended upon merit, but this they perceive to be enduring because grace is the basis, grace the condition, grace the strain, grace the bulwark, grace the foundation, grace the topstone. The covenant is a treasury of wealth, a granary of food, a fountain of life, a store-house of salvation, a charter of peace, and a haven of joy.

A Little Slice of Americana...

...East Tennessee style!  I shot this at a music store, a few miles from my house, and this music store has been around for generations.  It is iconic in my area.  If you ever come visit me, I will cook you the best BBQ you ever tasted, and take you to see the Bull on the Roof.  (And the amazing vintage guitars, banjos, mandolins, and on and on...)

Oh, and don't forget my Beta Launch Giveaway!

(the bag and cuff I'll be giving away this Friday!)

Leave me a comment here.  If you tweet or Facebook about it, please come back and leave another comment - you'll be entered twice!

Thanks to all who've entered so far.  You are helping me get started in what has so far been a hilariously happy (and brand new) art career, and a right fine season of life!

Time With A Friend

Met a good friend for breakfast this morning...and then we....

Oh yeah.  We did.  And I discovered that, when I shoot left handed (unlike this particular picture)...

I'm a Lights Out Layla.

Beta Launch Giveaway!

Michael Hyatt's post on permanent beta, just this past Monday, has had a profound effect on me this week.  As a result, I am going to do a Beta Launch Giveaway.

When a company launches its Beta Project, they know it is imperfect.  The whole idea is to launch the product "as is" and get the customer's feedback.  Now...particularly in technology, quite often the customer still pays for the product, even in its beta state!  The price is reduced, but customers willingly pay to be part of the project, and to get to use the product.

I've been working on my own line of bags, cuffs, and altered couture - not just art!  I have a basic design for a bag in mind - I want it to be smaller, reversible, and to always have an inspiring word embroidered  somewhere on the bag - sometimes very inconspicuously, sometimes boldly.

My vision is to help women live well-defined lives...artfully and soulfully...in context of the Gospel.  

Typically, under the old "wait until it's perfect" mindset, I would tweak until I thought it was perfect - which isn't a bad idea in this context;  however, I have a perfectly-imperfect, very use-able bag and a beautiful leather cuff, both of which would be wasted just because I am still tweaking the design!

I hate waste.

So, after mulling over Hyatt's thoughts on beta all week long, I thought, "Why not do a Beta Giveaway?"

I will give you my very, very, very first bag, and my very, very second cuff (first one went to daughter Hannah) - and you use and wear and give me feedback as to how I can improve the design.  Tell me how it wears for you and what you might like for me to do better.

Go ahead.  I can take it.

Here is the cuff:

...this is a narrow leather cuff, in a medium size, trimmed in a rich mustard gold embroidery - stamped with the word "LOVED"   Who doesn't need to be reminded of that?  If you have a tiny wrist (as I do), it fits like a bangle.  If you have an average or large wrist, it will fit close - more like a cuff should.  But I like how it looks on me!  I wore this out to breakfast with the Preacher just this morning, and got a compliment on it!



Here is the bag:

Upholstery grade vintage-style fabric outside...

...ticking on the inside, a cell phone pocket (fits all Smart Phones), and a hand-embroidered label, just to whisper to you about the key to - not just a beautiful eternity - but also the key to a beautiful day...

It is reversible...here you see it with the embroidered pocket on the outside...

...and the vintage-style fabric on the inside.

Now I know three things about this bag:  1.  It is a bit too floppy to suit me.  I will have to tweak that - using something to make the sides stiffer.  2.  I think it needs another interior pocket (or exterior, depending on which side you prefer facing out) and 3.  There are tiny flaws, here and there.  But overall, this is a super cute bag, and is use-able.  I still love the shape and the size and the drop of the bag (distance from your shoulder to the start of the bag, when the bag's straps are on your shoulder.  Perfect drop!).  I know I am on the right track.

Hey - even if you only enjoy it for two days, you enjoyed it for free.  If you decide it isn't right for you, you could pass it along to a daughter or granddaughter.  Just please give me some feedback!


If you would like to participate in my Beta Launch, here's what I need you to do:


1.  Please follow me here on my blog - click "join this site" on the button you'll see in the right hand sidebar.  


2.  Leave a comment, telling me that, once you receive your gifts, you'll let me know how these items wear for you.  I truly want the feedback! 


3.  If you either:  A.  "like" Sheila Atchley Designs on Facebook, or B.  share the link to this post on Facebook (click on the Facebook link in my sidebar) or C. tweet about my website (sheilaatchleydesigns.com) I will enter you twice.  Just please come back and leave a second comment, letting me know that you did either A. or B. or C. and your second comment will be your second entry!

That's it!  I will draw a name in one week - Friday, one week from today.  If only one person enters, you win!  That won't hurt my feelings.  I just love to give.

Even if you are local (which lots of you who read my blog are!) I still want to mail your prizes to you, USPS, because I need for you to get the full experience - design, packaging, everything - and give me honest feedback on how special your package made you feel.  This is an important aspect of developing my business.  (Did I really just call it that??)

Whew.  I am so Beta right now.  Nothing is perfect.

If I succeed, you succeed with me.  If I fail, just don't let me fail alone.

I could never design anything I would not wear myself in an East Tennessee Second.  Imperfect as they may be, I.  Love.  These.

Faith Can't Be Bought...

But the mixed media canvas entitled "Faith" has sold...

...and will bless its new home in Australia!  Post edit:  make that the UK.  Keeping up with my globe trotting girl Ursula is a full time job.  ::grin::