Inside and Out

Imagine this...quick short footsteps running down the hall toward a mother sitting in a chair with her back turned to the child. The footsteps slow and then stop in confusion when Mom can not be found. Then the mother calls out "Lisa, I'm right here." The child once again races forward, and dives into Mom's lap for the comfort, peace, and security she knows she will always find there. Meanwhile, Mom never once turned around or looked up as the footsteps approached the room where she was seated. She knew which child was looking for her, knew the sound of their approaching footsteps.

This memory kept me thinking, what about God? Does he distinguish between all his children's different ways of approaching him? Can he instantly tell that it is me coming to talk, just the way moms know the exact cry, laugh, voice, and footsteps of their children?  Does God know the sound of my laugh, heart breaking into pieces, my footsteps to his door? I think so.

After all, He reminds us over and over in his word how loved and valuable we are to Him. In Matthew 10:29-30 it says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; your are worth more than many sparrows." 

It is so incredible to know that my God knows me inside and out and yet He loves me! He hears me and knows just what I need as I approach his throne, and he welcomes me with his loving arms...

Psalm 139:1-18

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Quilt of Life

The Patchwork Quilt

“Life isn’t given to us all of a piece,
It’s more like a patchwork quilt
Each hour and minute a patch to fit in
To the pattern that’s being built.

With some patches light — and some patches dark
And some that seem ever so dull
But if we were given to set some apart,
We’d hardly know which to cull.

For it takes the dark patches to set off the light,
And the dull to show up the gay
And, somehow, the pattern just wouldn’t be right
If we took any part away.

No, life isn’t given us all of a piece,
But in patches of hours to use,
That each can work out his pattern of life
To whatever design he might choose.”

Helen Lowrie Marshall

Quilting is something that my grandma taught me to love. The putting together of scraps, pieces that many just throw away, to make something with a pattern, something beautiful. And the more I think about it, the more I see God as a master quilter. 

Imagine each and every piece in a quilt is a situation, a memory, a part of a life. There are bright colors and dull colors, happy prints, prints of different seasons, dreary prints. There are the ugly pieces, the beautiful pieces, and the mediocre pieces. Yet every one is necessary to the quilt. The dark and light, happy and sad, dull and extravagant make way into a pattern that only the quilter can recognize. A pattern that is only there because of the contrast in the differences in the fabrics.

Many times while suck in the moment of the ugly of life, it is hard to see why this particular situation needs to be apart of my life quilt, an the temptation arises to ask "why me?". I think about the different quilts I have made. I think about all of the original pieces of fabric that I choose, not because of beauty or design but because of how I thought they would look in the finished quilted design. In picking out the scraps to use for the quilt, the finished pattern is how I make choices for color and design. 

I know that God can take all of my pieces of life and make them not just into the pile of scraps that I currently possess, but into a masterpiece of His design when I choose to hand Him every situation. The times of joy, tears, peace, sadness, excitement, anticipation, fear, love, fellowship, and many more are unscrambled in His artistic hands and placed into the pattern that he has picked out for me and is uniquely mine.  

Beauty All Around