Volume 2 ~Issue 12
December 2016 eMagazine of Philippi Prospect Ministries TM
Restoration & Completion
Table of Contents 3~Notes from Rebecca 4~PrayerWorks 20-21~FruitWorks 28-29~Remarkables page 5 Restoration & Renewal
page 6 ShopWorks~Stitch & Spirit
page 22 Namesakes 2Š StillWorks Imagery by Rebecca Matthews
Back Cover~Subscribe to Grace Point!
page 24 ScrollWorks
page 26 Morning Moments
page 30 Storyworks
Hello to all readers! First, I want to thank you for clicking on the link that brought you to this magazine.
Notes from
Rebecca
New this issue: The theme for December, Restoration & Completion, is about reaching the goal, crossing the finish line, and accomplishing what we have set out to do. Read articles about all of this and more in the pages ahead. A huge “thank you” to Stitch & Spirit” for sharing with Grace Point! their beautiful handmade items, and sharing the story of how it all came to be. Our goal is to be the bridge for people to cross to when desiring to know more about Scripture from the Hebrew perspective, and how it comes alive when studying the language God used to write it. The purpose of this magazine is for help, hope and encouragement toward our fellow man. We are our brother’s keeper! Our prayer is that there will be a blessing for each reader among these pages. God bless each and every one! Shalom. I am also now including my copyright on my own photos used in the magazine. Each of my photos will have © StillWorks Imagery by Rebecca Matthews at the bottom. If I have turned the photo into artwork, the there will also be © peinture proximite` which is the name of my art gallery. Sincerely, Rebecca Matthews Founder, administrator, and ordained minister at Philippi Prospect Ministries Founder, senior editor, writer, publisher of Grace Point! eMagazine Photographer and curator at StillWorks Imagery Artist at (atelier de) peinture proximité (The opinions and/or beliefs expressed in this magazine by contributors do not necessarily reflect the opinions and/or beliefs of James and Rebecca Matthews, founders of Philippi Prospect Ministries, and Grace Point! eMagazine.) © StillWorks Imagery by Rebecca Matthews
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Š StillWorks Imagery by Rebecca Matthews
Avinu Shebashamayim, I pray for those who are making a major move in their lives, and for those that need to make some tough decisions in order to be obedient in their calling. Help them to choose the right path, and to know that what looks like a loss now will come again as a huge gain at the appointed time. In the name of Yeshua. 4
PrayerWorks TM a publication of Philippi Prospect Ministries TM
A Journey to
There will come a time in our journey where we can see our goal, and know that our destination is in sight. We will be able to look back at our footprints in the path that our journey has taken us, and realize that all of them were necessary to gets us to the point we now stand. None of them have been wasted, we are not late getting there, and our eagerness to finish now takes on new meaning. Long, arduous journeys can deprive us of our spirit of accomplishment and wear us down so that we stop before we get to see why we began the journey in the first place.
There will come a time in our journey when we will reach the summit. The victory will be sweet, and the exhilaration will be fulfilling. Our joy will be full, and our future will contain no more questions of “when” or “how much longer.” We can stand in joyous awe of the One who brought us through all the obstacles, trials and hindrances along the way. Surveying the land around us, we will know that we have accomplished what we set out to do, and that the next leg of our journey will be completely different than the one we have just finished. We will be able to instill hope in others who are still on their journey, and who are still looking for horizons, clear paths, and mountain tops. a publication of Ruth Ministries-The Virtuous Woman,TM a woman's restoration ministry/a segment of Philippi Prospect Ministries
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all photography Š Stitch and Spirit | all photos used by permission
Handmade In Israel ~ ShopWorks
Judaica | Arts | DIY Kits | Personalized Handmade Gifts
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Israeli mother - daughter duo weave spirituality into home design By RaizelDruxman
Creating handmade crafts since she was a young girl, Noa Berenson, now 60, is not content anymore with only sharing them with her family. Together with her 26 year-old daughter, Yael Ramon, she has a vision for inspiring people around the world, while making their homes - and lives - more beautiful. People talk about merging the spiritual and the physical world, but few manage to pull it off seamlessly. Berenson has turned a lifelong dream into reality this year by opening up an Etsy store with Ramon to sell their one-of-a-kind, handmade home designs and personal items. With an array of art pieces that go beyond brightening up someone’s home or daily routine, Berenson and Ramon are quickly expanding their online store, Stitch and Spirit. “Our real goal is to inspire people and to bring goodness into the world,” Ramon said. “The dream that moved us to start this business is to bring joy to people and teach them how to combine the physical and spiritual.” They design Judaica, arts, DIY kits and personalized hand made gifts including Jewish New Year greeting cards, framed pictures of classic Jewish blessings, custom fabric covers for prayer books and psalms, and more. For Berenson this is a fulfillment of a lifelong dream. “When I was Yael’s age I dreamed about doing this,” Berenson reflects, “But I was a mother surrounded by little kids, laundry, cooking and many other responsibilities.” Now that her children have children of their own, Berenson has time to pursue her dreams that have been percolating for years. Ramon grew up with handmade art as a central and basic part of life. “My mother was always sewing and knitting. It was just part of our childhood,” she described. Berenson used to knit each child a special picture for their birthdays, make bags, tablecloths, costumes and even skirts and dresses that were passed down between the four sisters.
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Table of Contents
Wanting to involved her children, Berenson encouraged her kids to get their hands dirty and it paid off. “I knitted my first bag when I was 8 years old,” Ramon said. “My mother was always very encouraging of our creativity and to try new things. As I grew up, I wanted to find out for myself the magic of working with your hands.”
It was also something that became a family pastime. “All the women in our family were always involved in art. We used to just sit together and design different crafts for fun,” Ramon said. “It was bonding for us.” Although she is the only one designing handmade home decor professionally, Ramon’s sisters all use their creativity in different ways. Her two older sisters wrote and designed the best-selling book, “The Secret of Challah”, and Anat, her older sister, is a graphic designer who makes the graphic design art in their store. “Our family is a team,” she said, “I’ve always felt that way.”
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For those who know their family, this unique combination of materialism and spirituality is not a surprise. Berenson became religious soon after she married her husband, Aharon, a former mayor and a fighter pilot in the Israel Defense Forces - also a staunchly secular Jew. Berenson and her husband never let their religious differences get in the way of creating a warm and loving home.
In fact it become an essential part of raising their children “My parents taught us how to merge differences,” Ramon described. “They remained happily married, never forcing any of us to follow either path, but setting beautiful examples by simply being themselves and living in harmony together.”
Although she grew up surrounded by art and creating art as a hobby, Ramon never really considered her using her artistic talents professionally. “It’s a bit of a challenge for my own sense of self to transition from seeing my art as a hobby to seeing it as a professional craft,” she said. “But my dream to create and my love for beautiful and valuable handmade things has been stirring for many years, and last year I discovered the will to turn my art into something that other people can enjoy.”
With the support of her husband, over the years Berenson has built up a following with her uniquely designed charity boxes that get children (and adults) excited about sharing their money and make their home look more beautiful.
An artist with a global vision, Berenson is excited to get the business running in full-force and prays, “That our creations will reach all over the world like a torch that lights up far away places.” Whether it’s the charity boxes that will encourage more people to give, a prayer book with a special cloth design that will help a little girl connect better to her prayers and tradition or signs with Hebrew letters adorning a young boy’s room - Berenson is determined to bring more beauty and meaning into people’s lives around the world.
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With their shared dream Berenson and Ramon get to work every day creating products to send out to brighten up the world. What’s their secret? “Joy, love and creativity drive the creation of our products, so we each do the part that we are good at and feel most connected to,” Ramon said. Among their unique home decor pieces are prints and knitted pictures of famous or humorous Yiddish sayings, like “Sleep is the best doctor” and “Eat, pray and be a mensch.” In addition to inspiring people, the mother - daughter team want their designs to form a link between the generations, as Jewish traditions have been passed down through the generations. “Yiddish was the language of the grandparents,” Berenson explains, “And now it is up to the grandchildren to keep it alive-even if it’s just in their kitchens.” When she is not working on art or tending to her three young children, Ramon and her husband run a dorm for trouble kids. Seeing the love, acceptance and true connection to spirituality that is lacking in these teens lives, Ramon feels even more driven in her art. “In our generation, where physicality and materialism often overshadow spirituality, I feel that specifically now there is also a special opportunity to connect the depth of physicality with the depth of spirituality,” she said. Their venture is rewarding to Berenson’s mother as well. “My mother is 92 years old now,” Berenson said, “And she is overjoyed that her daughter is finally forging the path that she always wanted to take.”
As Berenson so aptly put it, “It’s never too late.”
To learn more about their products or purchase something for yourself or as a gift, visit their Etsy store online, Stitch and Spirit by Noa and Yael.
**Exclusive for magazine readers, Noa and Yael are offering a 5% discount on all fabric book covers. Use code PPM5FORU at checkout.**
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A freilecher gezicht macht a guten gezicht. A happy face makes the heart open with grace.
See More Details **Exclusive for magazine readers, Noa and Yael are offering a 5% discount on all fabric book covers. Use code PPM5FORU at checkout.**
Der shlaff is der best doctor. The best doctor is a good a sleep.
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Psalms book with unique fabric cover
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**Exclusive for magazine readers, Noa and Yael are offering a 5% discount on all fabric book covers. Use code PPM5FORU at checkout.**
Psalms book in Hebrew with unique fabric cover
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Tehillim (Psalms) book with floral fabric cover, embroidered name label in Hebrew letters
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Tehillim (Psalms) book with floral fabric cover, embroidered name label in Hebrew letters
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Tehillim (Psalms) book with floral fabric cover, embroidered name label in Hebrew letters
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unique wall art | hand carved rubber stamp mandala | personalized Hebrew name art
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**Exclusive for magazine readers, Noa and Yael are offering a 5% discount on all fabric book covers. Use code PPM5FORU at checkout.**
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Girls' Tin Tzedakah Box "My Own Pushka" Tin Charity Box
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Boys & Girls Tin Tzedakah Box Tin Charity Box
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Jewish inspirational wall art
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**Exclusive for magazine readers, Noa and Yael are offering a 5% discount on all fabric book covers. Use code PPM5FORU at checkout.** 18
Hanukka gelt small cotton bag
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Hanukka gelt small cotton bag
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a closer look at the fruits of the Spirit
In Galatians 5:22-23, we are given a list of the fruits of the Spirit. They are the guidelines to which we conduct ourselves in our daily walk. These are nine different aspects of Godliness that we must adhere to in order to live to our fullest spiritual potential. They vary slightly, depending on the translation, but the foundational fruits of the Spirit are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. While at first glance, these all look the same, a closer look reveals small differences in their meanings, which translates to differences in their application and implementation. This article is meant to shed light on each of these nine characteristics of holiness, to explore their nuances and minute differences. Completion falls under the category of Peace.
Completion
What is it? What does it look like? The modern definition for this word is most often linked to a finished task, or an allotted timeframe. But, what does this word really mean? How do we apply it? And, is there a Scriptural model?
The dictionary describes hope in the following way: 1. 2. 3.
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the act of completing. the state of being completed. conclusion; fulfillment
dictionary credit
2 Corinthians 8:11-12 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. When we first start a ministry project, be it a monthly magazine or helping a neighbor that has fallen on hard times, we are gung-ho to voluntarily do the job required. However, as time passes, and our service does not produce the results we thought, or the service becomes a burden, then it is easy to put it aside, and make excuses for not doing what we began so enthusiastically. Rav Sha’ul is telling us to bring back the eagerness we started with, so that we may complete the job we started, because the reward for doing so is in the willingness to do it, not in the means to get it done. In other words, if we finish a project in contempt for it, then it has not been done out of love and, therefore, has been done with the wrong attitude. It brings to value of our ‘good service’ to nothing.
Philippians 1:6 Because I am persuaded that the One who has begun good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Yeshua the Messiah. This is a verse that makes us understand that we are in a constant state of improvement, always learning, and able to comprehend and apply the Scriptures to our lives. Only when we complete our life-cycle here will we be ready for the next destination.
2 Chronicles 8:16 Now all the work of Solomon was prepared to the day of the foundation of the house of Yahweh, and until its completion. So the house of Yahweh was finished. Every builder knows that, in order to put the roof on a house, there must first be a foundation in place. A roof structure does not cover anything if it is attempted to be assembled first. We all have a starting point with YHVH, and that is our foundation. It is the beginning of Him residing in us. When our house is fully built, then our lives will be complete.
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Ephraim Double Fruit
Our names are more than just what we are called. God gave names, or changed names, in Scripture, in the lives of those whose names were changed. Do up to the character of that name? Or, do you feel
Hebrew Transliteration: Ephrayim Hebrew Spelling: ֶאפ ְַ֫רי ִם Anyone with the name “Ephraim” can look very much like his namesake in Scripture. Here are a few examples of the characteristics of the name.
Genesis 41:52 The name of the second, he called Ephraim: "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction." In the same vein as Manasseh, Ephraim is also named from the emotional status of his father, Joseph, and how he felt being in the land of Egypt. After we have gone through the heartbreak of ‘forgetting’ the past, we must then take on the blessings obtained while being out-of-place. There was a double meaning in the name of Joseph’s son, which means ‘double fruit.’ First, he was the second son, so that is one is obvious. The second one is, however, a little deeper in the emotions of Joseph. With Ephraim’s birth, he was able to live at a greater level of peace in a strange land, than he had not been able to up to that point. 22
They can reveal a lot about our character. When it signified that a change was about to take place you have a Scripture-based name? Are you living a name-change is in order? Genesis 48:5-6 Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, will be mine. Your issue, who you become the father of after them, will be yours. They will be called after the name of their brothers in their inheritance. In the symbolism of Jacob taking Ephraim (and Manasseh) as his own also speaks to us as someone of a higher authority taking on the thing(s) that make us unhappy, thereby freeing us of a tainted past, so that we can start again afresh.
Jeremiah 31:18-20 I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself: ‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my Elohim. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.’ Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says Yahweh. In these verses, Ephraim represents someone who has realized they have misspent their youth, and are ready to turn back to YHVH. And YHVH expresses that He will gladly receive him when he turns back. 23
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Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in. __
Yeshayahu 58:12
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The fast that YHVH really wants from us. That is the simple message being spoken here. When the verse is laid out in Hebrew, the full magnitude of the statement Yeshayahu (Isaiah) makes has us realize the depth of what is being asked of us. We cannot please YHVH with a fast of our choosing; we must meet His standards. 26
Verse 6: tsom: to fast, to cover the mouth | chartsubbah: bond, fetter, pain, pang | resha: wickedness, a moral wrong, condemnation, trouble, disturbance, violation | aguddah: band, burden, knot, binding | motah: yoke, heaviness, a pole, a wavering, a falling down into decay, to slip, to be off course | ratsats: broken, bruised, crushed, discouraged, cracked into pieces | chophshi: at liberty, exempt from bondage, released from slavery Verse 7: paras: to break in two, to divide, to split, to distribute | lechem: bread, showbread, loaf, meat, food, grain, to eat, to overcome, to consume, to prevail | raeb: hungry, famished, to suffer from hunger | lo: no, neither, nay, never | ani: poor, afflicted, humble, lowly, needy, depressed | marud: outcast, homeless, restless, straying, miserable, mistreated, a rambler | arom: naked, bare, smooth, nude | kasah: to cover, to conceal, to hide, to be overwhelmed Verse 8: shachar: dawn, morning, early, light, to seek diligently, to search | or: light, bright, clear, day, sunlight, to shine, to make luminous, to set on fire | arukah: healing, restoration, soundness, wholeness | meherah: haste, speed, quickly, swiftly, soon, suddenly, to be liquid, to flow easily | tsamach: to sprout, to spring up, to bud, to grow again | tsedeq: righteousness, rightness, justice, equity, prosperity, evenness, level | kabowd: glory, honor, splendor, rich, great, noble | asaph: to gather, to assemble, to bring, to receive, to restore, to recover, to reward
Reading the Scriptures while knowing the definitions of words in Hebrew brings about a greater and deeper understanding of what is required from us toward YHVH, and what we then receive from Him in return.
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One of my earliest memories is of seeing my mother in her beach chair, reading a book under an umbrella by the water's edge while my sisters and I played beside her.
Of all the life lessons she taught me, that is one of my favorites: to take time at a place I love, restore my spirit with books and the beach. ___
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Luanne Rice
Remark a b l e s
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The Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. "I have never yet been beaten," said he, "when I put forth my full speed. I challenge anyone here to race with me." The Tortoise said quietly, "I accept your challenge." "That is a good joke," said the Hare; "I could dance round you all the way." "Keep your boasting till you've won," answered the Tortoise. "Shall we race?" So a course was fixed and a start was made. The Hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The Tortoise plodded on and plodded on, and when the Hare awoke from his nap, he saw the Tortoise just near the winning-post and could not run up in time to save the race.
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Then the Tortoise said: "Slow but steady progress wins the race."
Moral: If a person must win by boasting, they will surely fail. Because they are only concerned with winning, soon self-worth becomes secondary and their whole life is then consumed with beating the other person. Then, when they choose someone to race that looks like an easy win, they become conceited with their victory and essentially drop out of the race they have promoted, only to wake up and realize that they have not only lost the race to someone with an opposite character than themselves, but they have lost their self-worth as well, and can do nothing to get it back. 31