Being mindful of relationships is a life-long journey for me. That’s why I published my devotional/coloring book, Mindful: Meditate & Color your Way to Life-Giving Relationships. Today is National Coloring Book Day – what better day to get a copy and start coloring?
National Coloring Book Day
August 2 is National Coloring Book Day, a day to celebrate and color. It seems like adult coloring books are a fairly recent invention. But the first one was actually published in 1953 by Andy Warhol. In 1961, the flower children wanted to show us how we forgot to play, and published an Executive Coloring Book. It was really a satirical look at political awareness. Bookstores exploded.
We haven’t looked back.
I first fell in love with coloring as an adult when my mom was in a care facility after her stroke. It was challenging to find something to occupy her but we then we tried coloring and she loved it. We would sit at the kitchen table with her and several other women in the facility and color. I found it really helped me feel calmer in the uncertain times we were living through. Mom was on hospice for almost two years. In that time I fell in love with coloring.
Mindful Meditation and Coloring Book
I published my book, Making Peace with Prickly People (affiliate link) in 2018. Creating a shortened version as a companion devotional was my next project.
Researchers and art therapists have long recognized the benefits of coloring. I decided to create the devotional with coloring pages. Macy Houghtlin, an artistic friend, was willing to do the illustrations, or “doodles”. See Macy’s Written on the Heart page here.
So Mindful was born.
My hope for this devotional is to enable readers to renew and enhance life-filled connection to God, themselves, and other people by engaging all of their senses. My mind wanders a lot, but if I can employ some of my senses when I’m praying or reading Scripture, my attention span improves. In Mindful, I give suggestions for how to engage your sense of smell, hearing, and taste as you meditate on the devotions.
The entries in the devotional are not dated. Who wants to feel like they failed at reading a devotional if they skip a day? I hope you totally consume this book- that when you finish it in a month or a year it’s falling apart at the seams. Use it, scribble in it – get every last drop of it until you’re filled up and starving for more of God.
Where to Find Mindful
Mindful can be found at all major booksellers. Here’s the Amazon link. It’s an affiliate link, which means your price doesn’t change but I receive a small commission.
Happy National Coloring Book Day!