This is another journal page I completed recently, using one of the photographs from Kim Rae Nugent’s book, Journal Starters Sampler Volume I. It’s called, “Tear Down This Wall!”

When I spotted the photo of the cement-and-stone wall in the book, I instantly recalled former president Ronald Reagan’s iconic speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987, when he implored Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” I also thought about the walls that we put up around ourselves, and walls we encounter that block the way to our goals and dreams.

Lately I’ve been feeling as though there is a wall in my path, but it’s not one that just appeared there by itself. I know it’s one of my own creation.

There are some changes I know I need to make in my life, but fear is the wall that stands in my way. My fear of change and my fear of failure have been fused together like the cement and the rocks, and have become hard and impenetrable. In the past few years I’ve pounded on the wall, and even scratched and chiseled away at it. But I haven’t yet found the courage to pick up a sledgehammer and destroy it.

I pray that someday I will have that courage–and that sledgehammer! In the meantime, this page has played an important role in getting me to acknowledge the origins of my wall, and accept the fact that I am the only one who can tear it down.

This page was created with acrylic paints, gesso, spray ink, pigment ink, stamps, Washi tape, rub-ons, pens, part of the photograph from the book, and a variety of different letter stickers I had in my stash, including a few from a pack of very large white stickers that had been used to create a yard sign a few years ago.

Journal Starters Sampler Volume I can be ordered at Amazon.com.

Have a wonderful weekend!