Things I Love: ZLYC Fauxdori Traveler's Notebook

I recently got bit by the Traveler's Notebook bug and got an opportunity to review this set by ZLYC. It's available on Amazon for a fraction of what a Midori costs. The set of 2 books, the Travelers size and the Passport size, currently sells for around 40 dollars. They are made of very high quality leather, and despite what some of the Amazon reviews stated, I found them to have no adverse smells or any bleeding. 

I took pictures throughout the unboxing to show what all was included right from ZLYC:

Super nice packaging. This would make a great gift. 

Everything comes in this nice dustbag.  

Comes with a larger Traveler's size book and a smaller Passport size. Also has a nifty little pen holder that frankly, I will never use because I carry 50 pens at a time and they demand a pouch all their own. 

I chose the Dark Coffee color for no reason but for that nifty orange elastic. I like a little color in my life. My books varied a little bit in color from each other, but I like it. It just shows that they are truly hand-dyed, real leather products. Variation like that is, in my opinion, just part of buying these sorts of things. 

It

It  also came with a nice long length of black elastic. This would be plenty to replace the orange if you liked things a little more low-key. I used mine to make so variations which I will show later in this post. 

Right inside the cover, beautiful soft leather. Each book comes with 3 notebook inserts chosen at random. My Passport size can with 3 blank inserts, which is awesome for what I want to do with it (That will be another post). The Traveler's size came with one blank, one lined, and one calendar which is also just what I was hoping for. They all have brown craft covers.

Also included was this neat insert that has a pouch on one side and a card holder on the other. Also awesome for what I have in mind for this notebook.

Now that you see what comes out of the box, you'll know why I was so excited about finding this product. One Midori Traveler's Notebook cover costs around 40 dollars on Amazon. So for the same price, you can have both size covers, 6 total notebook inserts, a wallet insert and extra elastic. It is hands down, a much better deal. The leather is still very high quality so I feel like the only real difference is the brand name. If that doesn't matter, definitely go for this deal. 

Now, each person's use for a product like this is going to vary greatly based on their life. I don't know many people with a life like mine, but I'm going to show you how I'm using mine and hope it inspires you. 

First things first, I decided when ordering this that I didn't want it to end up as just another notebook that gets used a while then forgotten. God recently led me to go on sabbatical from my smart phone (I'll be writing more on this later), and one of the problems with that was not having my calendar or the ability to take down a quick note or thought while on the run. Enter the Traveler's Notebook. To make sure that I always have it, I knew I wanted a wallet insert to keep my IDs and Debit card in it. Since the ZLYC Set came with one already, I was set from the start. 

While I was waiting for it to arrive, I found this free printable to make an insert myself. I printed the grid paper and cut it down to size along with a cover from white card stock. 

I printed out 15 pages of front & back grid, so there are 30 pages each with a front and back.

This became my farm log to journal the happenings of the everyday stuff around here. We have tried to keep several different logs for what we buy/sell, hatch, butcher, plant, etc. but it ends up being a little overwhelming. My idea here is to have one place for everything and always have it on my to be able to keep better records. So far, I am loving it. Yesterday I planted a raised bed of fall greens and radishes and I was able to draw out the bed on the grid paper and label what was planted where. 

We had a chick hatch out crippled and devised a little incubator egg out of a water bottle to help straighten his legs up (He's fine now!), and I was able to draw it out and keep a record. 

I'm actually really enjoying the time of writing everything out each day. Some days it only takes half a page and sometimes it takes 2. 

I took the extra elastic and strung it through the holes with the orange elastic (I had to stretch them out just a bit with a pen) so that I could put more than the intended 3 inserts in comfortably. I can post a video on this is anyone needs help. 

Next, I went to Pinterest and searched "hand lettered scriptures" to find ideas to decorate the fronts of my other inserts. I assigned the lined notebook to be my prayer journal. I keep my written prayer lists as well as the scriptures and prayers that I regularly pray over my family, and I have room to write out my prayers (which by the way, is an excellent way to remember the things God has heard you on.)

The majority of my sermons come from the Notes section of my iPhone. I usually start a new "Note" each week and it ends up full of the things God puts on my heart as I go through each day, studying, listening to other speakers, etc. Since I am currently going without a smartphone, this was something that had to be addressed. I took one of the little notebooks from my Passport sized journal and slipped it in to be the catch-all for random thoughts. 

Then, the blank journal has become my bible study notebook. I love the size of these because I can always have it on me. I usually use composition books but it gets a little bulky carrying it around. I'm never without my journaling bible so this just couples well with it. I plan on making several more inserts myself and will probably have to change them out regularly. 

Last to be addressed: the calendar insert. I don't really love it. It's weird how it just starts with 1 and goes to 31 with 5 days on each row. I'm actually planning on replacing it with one made from this template.  I really like to plan by week anyway so even if the monthly calendar has been laid out better, I may have still replaced it. 

I am currently in the process of turning my Passport size ZLYC notebook into a carryall for meal-planning, grocery shopping and organizing feeding whole foods to a big family like mine. I'll make a seperate post about that later. 

Obviously, I'm thrilled with this product. Even in the week I've had it, the leather is breaking it nicely and I've really started building the habit of going to it to write things down. 

I'm going to also make a YouTube video for ZLYC to show how I'm using my notebook and I'll link that here later if that interests you!

I received my set of ZLYC Notebooks at a discount in exchange for my honest review. There are also affiliate links in this post that compensate me a small amount when you use them to make your purchases. All proceeds of this blog go to feeding chickens and small boys. Thanks so much, friends. 

Love, Jess

The Pursuit of Passion

Before I had it, I longed for passion.
I’d see it, you know. I’d see it on movies and read it about it in book after book.
I wanted it. I wanted to be it. I wanted to feel it.

Before I was old enough to grasp it, back when I knew everything and before I still had worlds to learn, I went seeking passion.

I found a fleeting look-alike. The smell of it clung to my hair on hot summer nights.
It set my heart to racing and made my words sweet like sugar water.
But it was a childish thing. Found in all the wrong places while exploring with

All the wrong people. And like sugar water, it became cloying and rotting.

It was a hot pink passion. Like bubble gum, sticky but not holding, a mess when misplaced.
Like construction paper hearts on elementary Valentines days, embellished with lace and paper doilies and written with pretty sentiments that would surely fade when left in the

Back window on a sunny day.
It was an easily torn passion. Easily wilted. Tossed away and tried again.
It turned into marriage one day. And I thought surely I’d found it,
Of course it would hold that real-life romance where dancing happens in the kitchen and nights are spent under the stars.
And I was disappointed to find that real life doesn’t usually read like romance novels.

There was a time I thought I could find

All the passion I could want in my sons.
Them with their sweet, soft skin, and their insatiable need for me.
Them with their doe eyes and grasping hands that held my finger so perfectly.
But it quickly turned from a baby blue passion into a

Black one.
A sucking black thing that ate me up when I realized
I was not enough on my own.
And fear gobbled up my heart in the night.
And told me I was failing them.
Then the passion was disabled, it came rushing and pulsing then choked me because I could not protect them as much as I loved them.
It was a dark and scary passion. A desperate-not-to-fail passion.

So I ran, went looking for deep and rushing elsewhere.
I found myself searching marriage again, seeking to understand where passion fit in the

Thing I didn’t comprehend.
And I found that marriage passion is much less moonlight dances and down comforters and much more concrete.

I thought it a white passion. Lacking luster and tearing down trust.
Sometimes it was blinding and sometimes it was dull and

All the time I didn’t understand why.

Why would we be called to something so hard?

I got close once, picking through just going to church.
Like a game of Marco Polo, I was warm but not hot.
I felt a tickle of conviction in the knowledge. Felt a little

Stirring in the lack of understanding.
I didn't seek. I was lazy.
I felt a hunger on Sundays.  The way you feel when you need to eat fruit and water

But your drink soda instead. And the hunger goes away.
But not really.
It was quite a grey passion. A little blurred.
A little between the lines.

It was like a smudge of ashes, like smoke without fire.
A little bit of a mix between black and white.
It was a very small passion. Too small to carry me through

Big leaps.
Big hurts and big needs.

So I sought to fill the gaps it left in a lifestyle.
In warm eggs in a nestbox,

Homemade bread, clothes on a line,

Babies on the hip and a mason jar of sweet tea.
How romantic it would be to have a life to be passionate for.
It was, and it is.
However it’s a very green passion. Shifting with the seasons.

It is like grass, growing rampant when the water is plentiful but turning brown in drought.
It’s a passion that dies a little in the wintertime.

It strains a little when there is no time for showers alone.

When the kids get sick and when a goat gets sick, or when a

Mother rabbit decides not to care for her babies because it’s too hot,

And so they grow cold.

I see people looking. 

All sorts of people, surely we were made to be passionate. 

Surely, we were made in the image of an incredibly passionate God. 

And he would not leave us searching.

I found it unexpectedly. On a random Tuesday.

I found Him in a shopping center, on a cross, in the Book, in my dreams.
I found Him when He was chasing me. And I heard Him shouting,

“I AM PASSION! I AM PASSION! I AM PASSION!”

And I realized I had been running. Searching relentlessly, longing for the very thing

that was hot on my heels. Pursuing me uncompromisingly, longing to have me.
And one day, a random day, I simply turned direction.
And I ran towards Him.

I laid down my ideas of what passion looked like, of what knowledge looked like, of what romance and marriage and motherhood looked like.
And I ran.

And it hardly took long at all until I collided into the arms of

Passion.
I fell in love and caught on fire.

Passion changes things.
It puts fire-tinted glasses over searching eyes.
It reveals the hidden obvious.

It shows that marriage’s white passion holds every color of light.
That true love is both a downy place to land and a concrete place to  

Stand

Build

Grow.

True passion filled in the black hole of fear in motherhood.
It brought back the baby blue. Reminded me

When their chubby hands outgrow my finger,
I need only hand them over to Him.
It assured me that if I am enough or if I’m not,

It doesn’t matter because He always is.

He tore down my walls of knowledge. Erased the smudges of grey

And with red blood, made things

Black and white again.
And then my eyes were opened

And the Word was alive. It was speaking to me.
And I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t wanting.

I became a girl dancing on the feet of my Father.
With freedom to twirl, arms spread wide in
deep and solid abandon.

Passion made me grateful.
For all these things I have to be passionate for.
It has ignited all the dry places.
Healed all the scarred places.
Made light all the dark places.
It covered the lies with truth.
The fear with peace.

I became bold.
In this passion that is security that is mine, I am bold.
A roar or a whisper, whatever He calls for, I can be.
I am armed and not afraid.
This is a red passion, and a orange one, with flashes of blue and white and sometimes

There is lightning.

It is an unconceivable passion.
Such a beautiful passion. It is the

Loveliest of romances.
It is honey. Life-giving. Unable to spoil.

It’s yours too, this passion.
Whether you know it or not.
Whether you are running fiercely or sitting comfortably in warmth.

There’s a fire on your heals.
Do you want it?

Hear these honey words,

Feel them drip down into that longing, deep place of

Needing to burn.

I pray now that if you are reading this, 

You will catch fire. 

I pray that some place in you that longs for passion perks up, 

Maybe it's tired of searching. 

Maybe it's tired of running. 

Maybe it's just tired. 

Let this honey drip down and let the fear shut it's mouth and 

Hear me. 

Passion is hot on your heels. 

Fire is hot on your heels. 

Turn around and pursue the arms of Jesus. 

He is passion, and when you collide into Him, 

You will be passion, too. 

The Least of These

A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to preach at Soul Food Café, a mission outreach in Conway, AR. It was one of those times where despite my best efforts, I had been completely unable to come up with a message to give. 

Nada. Zilch. Nothing.  
So when they handed me the microphone, I simply said “My name is Jessica,” and started to pray, knowing it would be good because it would be all on God. 

It was. It was a good message. But when I think about that day, any words that came from my mouth pale in comparison to the juggernaut that sat before me. Poverty. That oppressive thing. Big, ugly, stinking, sucking poverty.  

You know, I can’t stop thinking about it. Every Tuesday, this place opens and feeds hundreds of people. They come in because they are in a shelter, or a rehab, or because they are simply having a hard time making the budget stretch until the next paycheck. They get a hot plate of food and a box of items donated from grocery stores with expiration dates that have since passed.   

Volunteers in red t-shirts serve beans or spaghetti or garlicky bread and they pack boxes or cut hair or pray. And every week, the people come. Because they have needs that are not met and they hear of a place full of people willing to meet them.   

Most go for the spaghetti. Not Jesus. But they find Him anyway.   

They told me to be prepared for a loud audience. They told me I might have to hush them up, because they came for the spaghetti and they’d be in line to get it. I didn’t have to hush them though, and they weren’t loud. They were too captivated by the words being spoken over them. I saw it. I saw the tears in their eyes as God used me to tell them, “You are a masterpiece. You are an heir to the Kingdom. You are a child of the King. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.”  

I preached twice, prayed with half a dozen people, ate a plate of spaghetti and left in awe of what strong truth will do for lost and hurting people. Then I went home, got on Facebook and within just a few minutes, I had come across a news story with a long line of comments dogging welfare recipients and thugs and all sorts of the people that I had just preached to. Of course, the world is broken. Of course, these comments shouldn’t shock me and they wouldn’t if they had been made by the broken world. What bothered me was the fact that many of these comments came from professed Christians. 
I walked away from the computer without commenting but I’m still being haunted by the juxtaposition of that hour.   

My friend Jennifer cuts hair in the back room of Soul Food. She sits addicts down in her chair and makes them feel like people again. She sits men and women 2 weeks out of the state pen down in her chair and makes them feel value again. They get haircuts they would not be able to afford otherwise. They are made presentable to obtain jobs and a chance at a new beginning. More importantly, they also get the gospel. They receive healing. They get delivered. Because they meet Jesus, obviously. But they meet Him through Jennifer. They meet Him because someone took the initiative to show them what love looks like by giving them something they couldn’t afford without expecting anything in return. Do you know how many people are bewildered by that concept?  

We’re so comfortable, this nation. I wonder how many Christians click on celebrity news stories about sex changes and divorces, but walk by homeless men needing a dollar or a prayer. What are we turning our heads and reaching our hand to? Is it Jesus? 

I don’t mean to be condemning. I really don’t. Unfortunately the action of humans is condemning enough. My only hope is to bring some perspective so we can self-examine. So we can be better. 

We live in a country so consumed with want that need goes unmet right under our noses. Yeah, I’ve heard the arguments. They had choices to make. They screwed up. They made their bed. But telling them to lie in that bed is not a Christian concept.  

One of the women I prayed with at Soul Food was named Shirley. I took her in the back and we talked for a while. She’s been clean for a month but there’s no security in the shelter she’s living in so the money she’s trying to save keeps getting stolen. 

As we prayed, I opened my eyes and noticed an oozing scab on her knee dripping blood down onto on her low, white sock. She must have been wearing them for a couple of days based on the color of the blood stains. I noticed how small her feet were, so much smaller than my own feet, which I have always considered plain. I don’t pay for pedicures like so many of my friends, but when I looked down and saw my clean, plain feet in 100 dollar Birkenstocks next to hers in her bloody socks, my heart was grief-stricken. Why do I have so much? 

She was molested for the first time at age 9 when her mother used to make deals with the neighbor for her to go over to visit while his sons came to do yard work. She’s 59 now, and she didn’t want me to pray for her to get more money or to get a new car or to have a great new job or a husband or any of the things we privileged Christians might petition God for. No. Shirley asked for me to pray for her to be able to sleep at night.    

So I did.   

And then I went home and saw professed Christians making comments about welfare rats and white trash. I didn’t comment, but I am now.   

How dare you talk about Shirley like that? How dare you say such Christ-less things, you with your computer with internet and your clean socks and your childhood where you weren’t prostituted to the neighbor in exchange for someone to mow the lawn? Was it really her choices? And if it was, does it really matter?  

Didn’t Jesus say to feed His sheep? Didn’t He say to do it for the least?  Are you using your privilege to follow that command or are you staying comfortable?  The brokenness of the world is an opportunity for those who know Jesus to introduce Him to others. The brokenness of our world screams the need for revival and love and a savior. And it is up to us to be the conduit for that.   

There aren’t enough Christians willing to leave their comfort zone and love people. Even though they know that’s exactly what Jesus did for them. While we were still sinners, He left His throne and loved us. He bandaged up our scabby knees and pulled us from our poverty. And He loved us first so we could then love others in return.  

Open your eyes. Quiet your opinion. Reach out your hand.  

When you do it for the least of them, when you do it for Shirley, you do it for Him.      

To sow into what Soul Food is doing, see their website here. You can also connect with them on Facebook. 

A Weight of Revival

This article originally appeared on The Worship Center Blog

by Jessica Sowards

A couple of weeks ago, the Lord woke me up very early on a Sunday morning.  I hadn’t been dreaming and I had no overwhelming feeling of His presence or power resting on me. What it actually felt like was a very ordinary moment in a completely quiet house at 4 a.m.

I turned my lamp on, picked up my bible and flipped through it, stopping in Matthew at the Parable of the Talents. Immediately, I knew this was what He meant for me to read. I assumed He was giving me a word for collecting the offering at church, one of the duties of being on the pastoral team.

It wasn’t about money though. And it wasn’t the message I’ve heard preached multiple times before about people using their spiritual gifts for the kingdom.

A year ago, when God called me out of comfortable Christianity and trapped revival in my bones, everything changed. It was as if the world and the walk I knew was suddenly viewed through fire-tinted glasses. Every injustice and every darkness I saw on the news just cried out the need for revival. The lukewarm church has been comfortable in bathwater religion for too long and the water is growing colder by the minute. Soon they will all seek heat or freeze. We are a nation poised and desperate for the fire of God.

The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-30) tells a story of a master who left his possessions to his servants while he went away for a time.  To the first, he left five talents. This servant was faithful to work with what he had been given and double it. The second servant was left with two talents, and he was also faithful to double his portion. The third servant was left one talent which he buried in the ground and did not double or even collect interest on. So when the master returned, he had nothing to give back except what he had been given. He was scolded and cast away.

I’ve always read this and dismissed the third, slothful servant as the other Christians. You know the kind, the Christmas and Easter church goers that identify with Christianity to the extent of their Facebook status but not beyond it.  I was wrong.

The word “servant” or “slave” in this parable actually comes from the Greek word doulos. It is referring to believers who willingly live under Christ’s authority as His devoted followers. It is the very same word used in Joel 2:29 and Acts 2:18, in reference to the servants who would have the Spirit poured out on them. It is a word used with great honor throughout the New Testament to refer to followers like Peter and Paul and Timothy. The parable is, in short, a story of the burning ones.

This realization alarmed me. I immediately began to scour the Strong’s Concordance to learn what the living word of God was conveying in this hour.  And then I heard it. It’s revival.

A talent isn’t actually an amount of money. It’s a measurement of weight equivalent to about 130 pounds. And while the ESV says the master distributed the talents based on each man’s personal ability, the original text more descriptively says the distribution was based on each man’s private strength.

Being a forerunner to revival is not for the faint of heart. It’s a heavy weight of something hugely important and immeasurably precious. The cry for repentance cannot come from a mouth that hasn’t already cried out to God its own repentance. It takes a passion grown in the secret place to be able to carry this weight. It takes a deeply rooted yearning for clean hands and a pure heart. It takes a private strength only truly known by the Master.  He distributes accordingly.

This parable is a promise. Each treasured weight of outpouring placed in the hands of a faithful servant will be multiplied. Those who are willing to sacrifice their agendas and give up their plans to host His presence will see a great increase. Those who recognize that He is not doling out useless currency will get an opportunity to serve Him. Seeing the value of who He is and what He intends to do, they will go at once to make the most of what He gives them.

These servants were not competing to be the best servant or the most noticed. They did not do anything for their own personal gain. There was no confusion about who owned the riches. Even the profit they earned was presented with only one hope: to enter into His joy. Man cannot own revival because man cannot create revival. It is truly a bestowment of a wealthy master willing to trust us with His presence. No part of it belongs to us, even if we are so fortunate to see it multiply while in our possession.

What we do with it is up to us. We can act on it immediately, making His work our identity, pleasing our Father and treasuring His love and awesome power. The result of this is to share in His joy, to see a world transformed and the body revived.

Or we can bury it in the ground and sit on it.

See, this parable is also a warning. A sad ratio of the servants of God will not recognize revival when it is handed to them. Perhaps they will be embittered that their brother received a heavier measure than them. Perhaps they will think themselves above the required humility or they won’t want the mess. Perhaps they will be distracted by the demands of the world and accidentally let their good intentions expire. Maybe they just have the wrong idea of what God looks like and are too hard-hearted to see Him for who He really is.

It could be that they just believe the lie of the enemy saying they aren’t worthy. They become disabled by the idea that what they do might not please their Master. They believe Him to be hard and unfair because they have settled for a small view of a very big and great God. So they pass by the small opportunities to spread revival, the ones that come in grocery stores and the back row of sanctuaries, the opportunities that aren’t glamorous. They give up and think they will just stay comfortable and saved, lest they step out and make a mistake.

Regardless of the reason, any buried measure of His presence is a wasted opportunity to grow this desperately needed move of God.

It’s not too late. If you buried your measure, dig it up now. Don’t delay. Treat it as a right and a treasure and forsake everything to make it grow. If you are already multiplying what He’s given you, carry on.

He’s coming back soon. And I don’t know about you, but I want more than anything to hear those words: Well done, my good and faithful servant. Well done.

Facebook

Today, I launched a new Facebook page so I could more easily connect with the people who follow this blog as well as my Christian writing/speaking. I appreciate your prayers and encouragement more than I could ever say. You can follow me here. Thank you!