As a young girl, my family used to travel to Alabama twice a year to visit my paternal grandmother and other relatives on my dad’s side of the family. I loved traveling the 18 hours from New Jersey to Alabama. All I had to do was eat fried chicken, pound cake, grapes, and other treats. I wasn’t old enough to drive at the time. Vividly I recall the beautiful quilts my grandmother quilted. So, many pieces of colorful fabric would yield a wonderful creation. Somewhere along the line, my dear grandmother gave me one of my own. What a treat! “What’s In Your Quilt?”
Similarly, our life is like a quilt made of many different parts and pieces that form our life. Looking at the end product when the quilt is complete, you don’t see the hard work that went into creating the masterpiece. The labor is time-consuming. Pieces had to be perfectly laid out and cut; fabric choices made. Even years ago, my grandmother and others of her age with limited financial resources would gather scraps from other sewing projects. There were no fabric stores they would go to and purchase fabric pieces. Accordingly, with our life, we can’t go and buy a better us. If we are brokenhearted, sad, or going through a difficult time, it’s in our quilt. Are you facing a difficult time in your life presently? “What’s In Your Quilt?”
However, if your quilt pieces show that you face some of life’s challenges, you can replace the hurtful or broken parts with something better. Granted, from time to time, my grandmother needed to replace a portion of fabric with a better-looking and more appropriate piece. Subsequently, the new material would fit the scheme she had in mind to create. Similarly, if you are uncomfortable with who you are, do something about it. Always pray and ask God for His guidance, but have the faith to know that you are stronger than what you are facing. You are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Despite the circumstances of your life, you can rise above them. “What’s In Your Quilt?”
In conclusion, many challenges face us day by day. I know. Recently, I had to deal with an unexpected challenge. Was my quilt a little shaken? Yes, but I soon rearranged the pieces so that thankfulness, joy, and peace overshadowed the negative feelings that only come to stay if we allow them to. Not me, neither should it be you. Look in the mirror of your heart and soul. What do you see? “What’s In Your Quilt?” I pray for the joy of the Lord, which is yours, mine, and everyone’s strength! Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4. I’ll be back next week with a new post, “Blessed and Push Through!”
Be encouraged, and God bless!
Sister Jackie
Love it!
I remember when I was young and the older women of that day, – both young, old, and in-between, – all would “piece a quilt together”, – which was the phrase they used in my hometown, in reference to the sole purpose of “quilting”. As you stated, that, in their making quilts, they created their own individual quilts and designs, from the scraps that they had collected and saved and salvaged, used both for making new quilts and repairing old ones. And like your grandmother did, their quilts were mostly provided for their own families. But,
getting together with other women and while also teaching the young girls too, to “piece a quilt together”, was a major event, somewhat of a social past-time that met an essential need. It think it, their “piecing a quilt together”, was mental-health therapy in the best form!!! Then the hens would come out, LOL!!! – it brings back warm memories!!!
It’s so amazing that so many of those women stitched every tiny stitch “by hand” because most did not own or have access to any type of sewing machine nor able to buy new fabrics just only for the purpose of quilting. They were purely, skilled, hand-crafter artists’!!!
Thank you so much for sharing this contrast about quilting as an analogy for processing unexpected challenges in life. Truly, I had not looked at quilting before in this way. And to think at the time, back then, I truly didn’t see the legacy and value of the quilting process that those women did, for I only saw it as a LOT of hard work.
And as you said, using the quilting mending process in contrast as an example, “if you are uncomfortable with who you are, do something about it”. That made me think of another saying, and that is, “if you want something to turn out differently, you have to do something different”. I will truly not look at any “patchwork” the same again.
Again, thank you so much for always sharing words of enlightenment and encouragement, For I know for a fact that sharing is a form of caring!!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments that put the icing on the cake. I never thought about the other results that quilting yields, but I tend to agree that “piecing a quilt together” was mental-health therapy in the best form!!!” Thank you for always giving such timely and thoughtful comments. God bless you, and Heaven smile upon you.