Sewing and Stitching…

Last week, I was working on finishing a quilt for my oldest daughters’ 21st birthday. She wanted me to make her a special T-shirt quilt using her favorite tees from high school ~ and there were A LOT!  So this past week, she turned 23! Yeah…its been that kind of project!

I found a quiet place to work on this lap quilt {which actually turned into a QUEEN SIZE quilt} and a location where I could spread out. I went to church! I unloaded everything from my car, set up three 8ft banquet tables, plugged in my sewing machine and went to work.

About two hours in, something went very wrong. Suddenly, the machine wasn’t working. If you’ve ever worked with a sewing machine, you know how crippling it can feel when “for no reason” things stop working.  And when you are in a time crunch, that is a sickening feeling.

My. Heart. Sank.

The machine got stuck…SIX TIMES!  Needle stuck in the fabric, fabric jammed in the lower mechanism ~ nothing was moving.  Like, not one thing!  Very, very carefully I had to lift the fabric up enough to cut away the thread. I could be frustrated AFTER the fabric was free…I didn’t want to cut the wrong part.  I was on the brink of packing it all up and quitting. But I didn’t. I prayed so I wouldn’t  cry & then…then I called my mom! She’s an amazing seamstress & I knew she could help me. I told her what the displayed “code” on the machine said every time it jammed…she looked it up online since I didn’t have wifi, and she started laughing. I did NOT see the humor. She said, “Well, it says that E6 means that the machine is jammed.”

No duh!!!

[Insert scream here!]

She encouraged me to take a deep breath & keep looking for the problem. I got some scrap fabric & that machine jammed about FIVE MORE TIMES!!! Then on the sixth attempt, the machine didn’t jam but the thread coming from the bobbin was a complete mess on the underside of the fabric.

That’s when I saw the problem.

The bobbin was the wrong size and was bouncing around inside. Oh, and I had set the stitch size improperly.  It was at this point the Lord began to reveal to me the similarity between a jammed sewing machine and a jammed life.

I realized how sometimes, on the outside of my life “the pretty side,” everything looks great but underneath the surface my life is stuck, out of control, and operating with improper settings ~ I’m stuck.

So how do we get “unstuck?” We have to allow the Lord to gently lift our tired souls away from the problem and cut away all that is wrong.

If I had yanked the fabric instead of being gentle with it, I would have ruined the top part of the quilt that I had spent countless days and hours stitching together.  Had I hastily cut away the bad thread, I would have cut a hole or two in that same fabric.

When we are “jammed,” the Lord does not toss us about to and fro, yanking or tearing.  We may feel that way, but let’s be honest…aren’t we the ones causing us to be tossed about underneath the careful hands of our Maker?  When we feel cut to the core or ripped apart, could it be that sometimes we are not willing to be held gently and allow the Lord to take His time to remove those parts of our life that are causing us harm?

While we’re still here in this land of symbolism, let’s think about what parts of our own life are not in sync with each other?  Do we have parts that we have borrowed from other people?  Are we trying to be a different “model” than who God created us to be?

When you put the wrong size bobbin in a machine and try to sew, it just won’t work.  Well, it may work for a while when the bobbin is full-up with thread, but as time goes on, that thing is just gonna spin in circles, and not the good kind.  It’ll get to spinning so fast that it will come unraveled.  So many times I have been ‘unraveling’ and didn’t realize it until it was too late and life got majorly jammed!

Just because another friend, a fellow church member, your ‘mom friends’ at your kids’ school, or a an office mate can function at a particular “life speed” ~ it doesn’t mean that you can too!  And you know what…that’s okay!  God has calibrated your life to run at a certain speed ~ the only fuel you need to run at top speed is what you get from spending time in His Word and time in prayer with Him.

You have been created for the purpose that God has FOR YOU!

Just like a quilt, each square is painstakingly measured and planned out.  The fabric pieces that are chosen are done so ON PURPOSE in order to enhance the quilt as a whole.  Each fabric square that is created for a quilt is done so ONE at a time.  It is truly a fascinating experience to put one together, and as each row comes together, the beauty of each separate square becomes more intense as the pieces are sewn together.  For as much time the front side of the quilt takes to put together visually, I actually think more time is spent looking at it from the back side; the side with all the cut edges, the ends of threads, the reverse side of the fabric looking faded.  If all I focused on in sewing that quilt was the back side, I think I would have become dismayed at the true beauty it beheld.

My friend, God spends a lot of time on the underneath side of our life.  The side we don’t want anyone to see.  The side we feel is unkempt and faded.  HOWEVER….if we allow Him to show us His purposes for how everything is ironed out and stitched together, we are given the spectacular privilege to have a front row seat when God turns our life right-side out, and we see the beauty of our own “life quilt” ~ the beauty He already knew was there.

Blessings,

René
{My daughter Caitlin & I with her quilt💗}