It Is Not Death to Die

I know....after seeing the title of this post your are thinking "What?  Is she crazy?"  No, I'm not crazy.  For those who trust in Christ, it is not death to die.  It is life.  Eternal life with Christ.  As the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:  For we walk by faith, not by sight:  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

A friend recently had a death in her family.  Today I have been working on a sympathy card to send her.  I had a general idea of what I wanted the card to look like.  I have a new chickadee stamp that I wanted to use on the front of the card along with some words of encouragement/comfort. 

I looked through an old Presbyterian hymnal and found the perfect words from a song written by H. A. C. Malan in 1832.  According to Google, Henri Abraham Cesar Malan (1787-1864) is recognized as one of the greatest French hymn writers.  I typed out the words of the hymn in a pretty script-style font and printed them on cardstock that had a sheetmusic background. 

Here is the finished product:

 

 

I stamped the chickadee on a piece of tan cardstock and used a coordinating die to cut it out. Stampin' Up markers were used to ink the stamp in brown (the branch), rust (the berries), and light and dark grays (the chickadee).  Once I stamped the image on the cardstock, I used colored pencils to enhance the color of the berries and to add some dark shading to the branches.  I was a little hesitant about using the chickadee die.  What if I didn't have it placed on the stamped image just right and part of the image was cut off?  The Our Daily Bread people have designed their coordinating dies so that it is extremely difficult to mess up the stamped image when diecutting. They have quite a few stamp sets with coordinating dies.  I think I'm sold on them! 

 

The chickadee was adhered to a piece of damask cardstock from My Mind's Eye (Six By Six - Blink of an Eye collection) using foam dimentionals.  

 

The right side of the card is the words of the hymn printed on the music cardstock from My Mind's Eye (Lost & Found - Market Street collection).   Here are the words to the hymn:

 

It is not death to die;

To leave this weary road,

And 'midst the brotherhood on high

To be at home with God.

It is not death to close

The eye long dimmed by tears,

And wake, in glorious repose

To spend eternal years.

It is not death to fling

Aside this sinful dust,

And rise, on strong exulting wing,

To live among the just.

Jesus, Thou Prince of life!

Thy chosen cannot die,

Like Thee, they conquer in the strife,

To reign with Thee on high.

 

The embellishment at the top of the gray ribbon is from Webster's Pages (perfect Accents).  Thanks to my crafting buddy, Cheryl,  I have a nice supply of these perfect Accents embellishments!! 

 

I will also be entering this card in the Word Art Wednesday weekly challenge #48.