Featured // Bricolage Events

     Happy Friday Friends! I am so very excited to introduce you to these two beauties, Abby & Libi, the heart and hands behind Bricolage Events! These two have such a creative and servant heart, they radiate with His love & it pours out over those whom they surround themselves with. Their genuine smiles, their calm presence, and their joyful personalities are hard to quickly dismiss. I know these girls are going to bless the clients they encounter and I am so honored to have them featured on the blog! 

     I meet these two for dinner last week, snapped a few shots of them, and listened to their future dreams for their event planning business and it was refreshing to say the least! 

"As our hearts are aligned with Jesus our fears shrink to extinct & His power, purpose, & light radiates into our lives."
Be inspired as you get to know these two lovely ladies!

xoxo,

Sarah Delanie 

Bri.co.lage // a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things.

Follow Bricolage Events here // bricolagedevents.wordpress.com

Abby // Hi! I'm Abby, a 17 year old juggling her senior year of high school, a nanny job, and the wonderful work that comes with being the second half of Bricolaged Events! I love playing piano and ukulele, baking sweets, beautiful quotes, reading, and a glass of southern, sweet iced tea anytime. Ever since I moved to Fort Worth Texas, away from all my friends and the only place I had ever called home, the Lord has really been teaching me what it means to truly trust Him. The Lord taught, and is teaching me, to be dependent on Him, and Him alone. Through that hard transition in life, God gave me a friend. From an outsider's point of view it, would be almost unexplainable how we became friends, due to the vastly different personalities Libi and I have, but God had a bigger and better plan than any we could have imagined. This amazing call to entrepreneurship is such a whirlwind of excitement, and I'm trying to enjoy it all, every bit of it as it whips by. As I walk with the Lord, I am also blessed to take this journey through the realm of entrepreneurship with my dear friend Libi .

Libi // Hullo, my name is Liberty Vrazo and I am one half of Bricolaged events. I am eighteen and I've always been a crafter, an artist, a creator. I don't know how to look at something and not immediately think of how I could make it myself. I love craft blogs, craft stores (Which I often get lost in), coffee and tea, reading, and playing the ukulele.This business and blog is the culmination of everything that I can do well and really love to do and It's such a gift that I can pursue a career in something that gives me so much joy (and with my best friend too!). God is so very good to me and I really hope that this business will always be a testimony of that. I have learned so much in such a short space of time and feel so blessed and joy-filled to be able to do this with my best friend, Abby. She's so smart and talented and we've grown so much together during this process. I can see God working in both of our lives through each other and I look forward to many years of friendship, entrepreneurship, and the sanctification that is sure to occur during the process.

"God has wisely kept us in the dark concerning future events and reserved for Himself the knowledge of them, that He may train us up in a dependence upon Himself and a continued readiness for every event." -Mathew Henry

Light // Sweet Light

"Light is sweet and it pleases the eye..." Ecclesiastes 11: 7 

"I am a sucker for that soft warm glow filtering through trees. The creamy effect makes me so happy, and I love the film-like look it creates!"// Amy Hamilton of Photography by A. J. Hamilton

"I love light because it means hope. When the sun rises in the morning, it banishes the darkness of night. When the sun sets in the evening, it leaves us with a sunset, a promise to return again tomorrow. Light is also the first thing that God created when He began forming the earth. It gives life. That is why I love light." // Image courtesy of Emily Boyd

Take a look at the little things around you this week, soak up the littlest of blessings, and let Jesus open your eyes to an authentic kind of beauty. It makes life so much more vibrant, alive, and precious. Happy Monday! 

xoxo,

Shine & Soar Team 

Be Poured Out

Poured into.

Loved on by others. Being mentored. Spending time alone with God. Going to a life-giving Church. Listening to sermons. Reading books. Encouraging texts. Being prayed for. Receiving surprise gifts. Reminded of God's faithfulness + truth + goodness by others. Being invited. Listened to. Remembered. 

Does your life resemble that? Of always being poured into, your cup overflows with love and encouragement from others and from Jesus? Mine often does. 

But I am convicted of not being poured out as much as I'm poured into. A blessing hoarder, if you will. As important as it is to have a full cup (as in, not running on E in life), it can get even fuller by being poured out. I feel more whole when I reach out, encourage, and love on others (though it's usually hard at first). And when we pour out our cups for others, it gives it room to be filled up again by God and by others once again. It's a continual cycle.

I know that the teen years is a season of preparation in a variety of areas as we try to get as far ahead as we can before our time is eaten up by a full time career and other adult responsibilities. And this can get us focused into a constant mode of building ourselves up all the time. It's of course good to work on our character, relationship with God, and figuring out where we want to go exactly in our lives, but let's not forget that we are called to help others too be built up in their seasons too.

Being poured out is as much as a blessing as being poured into is.

We are called to be women who give, pray, love, listen, mentor, remember, encourage, embolden, and strengthen others. And in turn, we also get encouraged, loved, mentored, strengthened by others.

In this new week of possibility we have upon us, ask God to align your heart to give wherever you can. Text three people encouragements. Call a friend to listen to her in her hard time right now. Ask a girl that is just starting out her business out to coffee and give your time to help her on her way (and showing up with a package of things to help her grow would knock her socks OFF). Pay for someone behind you in the drive-through. Be available for others.

If I can be of help to you in any way shape or form, or if you need to talk to someone, my email inbox is always open. Shoot me an email :)

xoxo, Bethany

Favor & Benevolence

    "Basking at the thick, dark, wall clouds surrounding the suburbs while the vividly white birds fly straight across the sky to their home before the storm hits. The leaves on trees are whistling their song, calling on the rain, preparing for it's fall. 

| F A V O R : on the side of, giving support to |

For some reason, I just can't wrap my mind around it.

Psalms 90:17 "Let the F A V O R of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes establish the work of our hands!

Proverbs 16:15 "In the light of a king's face there is life, and his F A V O R is like the clouds that bring the spring rain."

The truth that the Lord's favor falls on the work of our hands like a spring rain baffles me. It is benevolence at its highest degree. Take heart to not only walk in the will of the Lord this weekend, but seek the light of His face, for there is life & favor just waiting to fall.