When Someone Comes to Mind: Prayer, Asters & a September Birthday

During my devotional time one morning, a few people drifted into my thoughts. If prayer is part of your life, you may know exactly what I mean. You’re reading, thinking, maybe sipping your coffee, or in my case, a latte, when a particular face or name suddenly appears in your mind. Sometimes you know why. Other times, you don’t.

I paused and prayed for the people I was thinking about, and somewhere in that ordinary morning came the words:

You came to mind today, and I paused to pray for you.

Sometimes That’s Enough to Say

I think we can make reaching out harder than it needs to be. We wonder whether we have the right words, whether we should say more, or whether what we have in mind is somehow too simple.

But imagine receiving a card that tells you a person thought of you and stopped to pray for you. There’s nothing complicated about that, but it says something important: you were remembered.

For someone who shares your faith, a few sincere words like that can carry quite a lot.

That thought also becomes one of the message ideas in my What to Write in a Christian Thinking of You Card guide, where I’ve gathered short faith-filled messages for those times when the care is there but the words need a place to begin.

Why Asters?

Once I knew what I wanted this greeting to say, the next question was what it should look like.

September is just around the corner, and asters are one of its birth flowers. I love their starry little blooms, especially in those rich shades of purple. They feel cheerful without trying too hard, and there’s something naturally joyful about them.

They also give the prayerful message a lighter, brighter feel.

And then the asters gave me another idea.

If the person you’re thinking about happens to have a September birthday, why not let their birth flower become part of the celebration? So this design is also becoming a personalized Happy Birthday greeting, with their name added right to the artwork.

The original design can still say, “You came to mind today, and I paused to pray for you,” while the birthday version becomes “Happy Birthday, [Name Here]!”

I’ve made many personalized greetings on this journey, but this is the first time I’m offering that option on the website.

Same asters. Same little heart tucked among the flowers. Two very different reasons to send it.

Faith is such an important part of Scatter Joyfulness, and so are birthdays, color, delight, beauty, hearts tucked into unexpected places, and a bit of whimsy. These asters somehow found room for all of it.

One Greeting Becomes a Whole Little Collection

This card is also turning into something of a studio experiment.

As I create it, I’m settling on a more consistent way I want all the pieces of a Scatter Joyfulness greeting to belong together. The square artwork becomes the starting point, then comes a coordinating 2 × 5 bookmark, a narrow floral detail for the back of the greeting, and a heart-shaped Scatter Joyfulness sticker that carries the same colors and flowers into one more small piece.

They coordinate, but they aren’t simply copies of one another. Each piece gets to do its own job while still feeling like part of the same family.

That process is helping me establish a clearer standard for future collections, which makes my organizing-loving side very happy.

And, of course, there’s a heart waiting to be found in the artwork. There always is.

This One Isn’t Staying in the Studio Long

Some greetings wait for the right person to find them. This one is different.

It’s barely finished, and it’s already getting ready to travel, which seems especially fitting.

It began because people came to mind during prayer. Those few words became artwork, and now the greeting gets to head out into the world and do exactly what inspired it in the first place: let a person know they were remembered.

Sometimes that really is enough.

Wander a Little Further

If a person has been on your mind and you’re not quite sure what to write, visit What to Write in a Christian Thinking of You Card for faith-filled message ideas you can make your own.

And if you’d like to send the artwork that grew from this particular morning, you’ll find You Came to Mind Prayer Aster Greeting Card in the Scatter Joyfulness shop.

If you’re celebrating a September birthday, look for the personalized Happy Birthday September Aster Greeting Card too.

Once you open each live product page and give me the exact URLs, I’ll turn those last two titles into working links too.