The fabric of life

I had to give another mini sermon at church at the weekend.  I found it really hard to prepare but below is what I ended up with.  Happy reading - hope it makes sense to whoever reads it.

Who am I? Today I am wearing the regalia of the Red Hat Society – yes, I am a “Red Hat lady” – take away the hat and I am just a woman wearing purple clothes. Take away the purple and I am just wearing a red hat – and in danger of being arrested if that’s all I have on.

It’s a uniform that identifies me as belonging to something. Just like a uniform identifies a nurse, fireman, policeman etc

But take away the uniform and I still have an identity. I am a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, sister, writer, quilter, crafter, administrator, gardener and a Christian just to name a few. There is no obvious uniform but there are usually clues which identify me in each of those roles from time to time. I also have a legal identity and have the passport photo to prove it. I am never sure whether to be surprised or offended when an official looks at the photo and then at me and decides in an instant that I am who I say I am. 

But the uniform or photo ID do not define who I am. That comes from something far deeper. I – as are you – was wonderfully created by God and moulded by a myriad of experiences to become the person I am today. In Jeremiah 1:5 God says “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;

So, who am I? This is a question I ask myself regularly. What is my role and purpose in this life? What legacy will I leave behind for my yet to be born great grandchildren. What will my grandchildren tell their grandchildren about me.

Every new day is a fresh challenge and I find myself constantly examining my walk and relationship with God and then my family, friends and others. Who I am now is not who I was when I was a child or a young woman. As I have grown, I have changed.  I wasn’t always a grandmother – I had to be a mother first. So it is in the Christian life, we have to grow – we can’t stay the same if we are to reach our full potential in Christ.

Now, God speaks to me when I am doing those things that he designed me to do and using the talents he has given me. That is when I am closest to Him.  It’s not when I am reading the word but rather when I am pondering it and chatting to him when I am out walking or gardening or being creative in my craft room.

 You might remember that last year I shared a communion message where I talked about crumbs of fabric and how when they are put together, they become something beautiful.   These were useless bits of material usually consigned to the rubbish tin. But by joining them together and re-cutting and ironing, they became something new and useful – and beautiful. But above all, they became whole and unique. 

Small scraps or crumbs

Partially assembled

A finished crumb quilt

Today I want to talk about what happens when through the Ministry of the Holy Spirit we are re-cut and re shaped from something very ordinary and acceptable but in such a way that we become an even more beautiful creation.

I consider myself to be a very ordinary person and I often marvel at how God reveals himself to me through ordinary everyday things.

I was in my sewing room a few weeks ago, thinking about my identity in Christ and wondering what I could talk about today when the scripture 2 Corinthians 5:17 popped into my mind

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

At the time I was experimenting with colours and an idea I had read about on the internet where you make a quilt top and then once it is all sewn up, you recut it.  I had some beautiful fabrics I had bought especially for this project so, without really knowing what I was doing, I started cutting and sewing.

Not what I was wanting
 - far too busy 

I didn’t like the finished result at all -  the colours, although lovely by themselves, just did not work together the way I wanted and I was disappointed with how it turned out. I tried to fix it by adding another fabric but all I did was add to the colour confusion.  It became what I describe as “busy” with no clear direction or theme.

2 plain pieces of fabric

So it was back to the drawing board. I still had enough fabric to try again but this time I rummaged through my rather large stash and found two plain colours. Neither of these colours stood out by themselves …. They were just ordinary bits of material.

9 patch

But this time I approached the project differently.  I now had some experience in the design and by studying my now rejected projected, was able to work out where to place each colour before I started sewing and cutting.

I sewed them into a nine patch [right] and if that was all I did, the finished result would still have been nice and I would have been quite happy with it. The very first quilts I made were this design and no one ever complained that they were boring or plain.

But as we mature and become more skilled in what we do, we desire to achieve greater results. So, although part of me was quite scared about ruining something that already looked ok, and knowing the mess I made of the previous one,  I knew that I had to take a step of faith and trust that what I had read on line would work, and so I set about re-cutting the squares.

Then I began sewing and before my eyes I could see a transformation taking place.

recut 9 patch

completed quilt

Both of these quilts are the same design but one stands out far more than the other one. Nothing wrong with the pink one – some people quite like it  - but to me, it is too busy and nothing actually stands out.

One is made from specially chosen fabrics and put together without any planning.  I made the mistake in thinking that it was the specialness of the material that would make it a beautiful quilt. But I was wrong. It is too busy. Conversely, what could be considered a plain and very ordinary quilt has been transformed into something quite extra ordinary. Can you see the difference? By being prepared to re-cut and step forward in faith, I have created something which stands out

As I spent the afternoon making both these quilts, God showed me again how he works with each one of us and reshapes us as we journey with Him.  We have to be prepared to be recut and reshaped if we are to reach our full potential in Him. And we don’t have to be anything special for him to craft something beautiful – we just have to be available and willing to be moulded.  I have actually just started recutting the pink quilt and look forward to seeing its new identity as a new creation later this year.

Our past is important - God can take the pieces of what we were before and put them in their right place in the work he is doing in his people.

And as he reshapes our lives, our walk with him should deepen and our minds become more Christ focussed and less independent. I know that as I seek His counsel more often, my faith has increased and I am beginning to grasp the truth of Psalm 139 and see his workmanship in my day to day life.

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 

You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  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, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

If there is only one thought that I can leave with you today about who we are in Christ and how he can mould us, reshape us, transform us and make us a new creation it would be this

Philippians 3:20-21

 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.