My mother quilts.
Not the perfectly stitched kind you see at the County Fair displayed on the walls or the kind that brings large groups of women together clucking and cackling as they carefully place thread in cloth.
She quilts because she loves us and because she knows that something made with hands is something so much more powerful than something made without and that something pieced together with love and intent is much more important than the manufactured. With limited budget she measures out the exact amount of fabric she’ll need for each project and she uses each piece.
For a Christmas gift a few years ago she gave me what I named the napping quilt. It’s a perfect size, a perfect weight, a perfect soft piece of beauty that has been made BY her FOR me.
In the far corner she placed an even more important piece of cloth than the carefully measured pieces on the front:
It is a small edge of one of her father’s {my grandfather’s} old work shirts sewn lovingly into my new heirloom.
It is a shirt that would have been thrown away. A shirt that saw the sweat and sun of a Northern Indiana farm more than 30 years ago. An almost thread-bare piece of cloth that was rescued, redeemed, recycled if you will, from a box of shirts that would have been put out for Goodwill. After he died 27 years ago, my mother went through her father’s belongings and claimed a few useless shirts for herself.
And THAT is exactly what God does with our lives. He takes the rags and rescues them from the box that is destined for somewhere, someplace else. He lovingly restores us to be used beautifully for him. He repurposes us for beauty, He redeems us for wholeness, and He reclaims us for His own.
This month, you’ll see (in)spired deals reviews based around the new Redeemed line by DaySpring. Inspired by the idea that we are messy and broken and in need of being made new by a God who’s main business is redemption, the Redeemed line is beautiful.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has made everything beautiful in His time.
An old shirt.
Some patchwork fabric pieces.
Something that was destined for the garbage but has been made beautiful in a new way.
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During the month of April, ten items from the Redeemed Collection are 20% off. Take a look at the discounted items here.
ABOUT SARAH MARKLEY
I'm the mother of two little girls, the wife of an amazing husband who'd rather play the guitar than anything else and I love to write. I spend my weekends watching my daughters ride horses and play...
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I so enjoyed this post, Sarah! How amazing that the Lord can transform us from rags to riches, just as your mother put the quilt together in love.
Blessings to you!
I loved the post and reading it and seeing the beautiful quilt just makes me want to quilt! ahh someday…. hopefully soon.
I love the quilt,so precious of your Mother to make it for you. My grandmother use to make them she made the knotted ones they were so warm. My Mom never made any quilts,so therefore I never had the opportunity to learn. I get alittle weepy when I see something someones Mom or Grandmother has made. You are so blessed!!!!
Loved your piece!!!
Being made beautiful in a new way is as warm and comforting as that lovely quilt.
Woven within this is the reminder that even when something has come to the end of its use in that area, it doesn’t mean it’s come to the end of being useful — a helpful distinction to make! I so often stop at the first part of the sentence, and don’t keep looking for ways that something (here a lesson, conversation, whatever) can be used afresh. I love how God can redeem anything!!
Love, loved, loved this.
I have many quilts made specially for me and you’re right…scraps becoming of most value. Totally us.
I’ll never look at my quilts the same way!
What a beautiful, beautiful post. It just blessed me today. It also makes me want to give quilting yet another try. My impatient self has such a time with the perfection quilting requires.