Fabric question at Hobby Lobby

This trip to Hobby Lobby was different.  With my 40%-off coupon in hand, I headed to the fabric section, and there it was.  A big roll of white cotton batting lying in wait on the shelf.  No apparent price, so I inquired at the cutting table, and the lady told me $12.99.  “May I use my 40% coupon?”  “Yes,” she replied, and as I consented to buy, she cleared the table to measure 7 yards.  Already I sensed in my heart the Lord giving me a special task.  Beyond any purchase of batting, it seemed He positioned me to ask this lady if she knew Jesus.  And she’s the one who started the conversation, “So what are you making?”  I explained about quilting for Holocaust survivors and how we’d seen God orchestrating people and events, all with impeccable timing that's leading us to make a trip to Israel.  I posed, “Do you know Jesus?”  And as her scissors began to cut my 7 yards, she answered with an affirmative nod and peered upward, “May I ask you a favor?  Would you pray for my daughter whose house burned last night?  A man was driving by late and stopped to tell them.  Half of the house was saved, and the Red Cross is helping, but would you pray?”  And I was stunned.  The Lord had used my question as a connection point for prayer.  That prompting in my heart was to encourage both the lady and me, and I continued, “What a blessing that the man drove by!  So you understand how the Lord can line up circumstances.  He led the man to drive by your daughter’s house, just like he led someone to give me a sewing machine and someone else to invite me to a quilting group because I know almost nothing about sewing.  And, yes, I will be privileged to pray for your daughter.”  It seemed a pause of pleasure filled the air for us both to contemplate the wonders of the Lord.  And as this Hobby Lobby trip held a wonderful difference about it, isn’t this the case potentially with all things?  A trip to the grocery store can be for much more than food, like the day the girl bagging our groceries asked us a Bible question.  And I remember a trip to the doctor’s office where I met a lady who was very scared, and the Lord gave opportunity for us to pray.  And on this day at Hobby Lobby, I exited the store in prayer, offering the daughter’s name to the Lord for provision and presence.  How I was blessed to be part. 

Personal delivery for Holocaust survivors

Why would a customer walk into a sewing store and give away her personal possession?  More specifically, why would a lady bring her sewing machine from home and ask the store employee to give it away to a beginner sewing student?  The whole scene is unusual.  As quilting started for me on such unlikely terms, and as it’s grown to yield some surprisingly pleasing fabric designs, and as it’s brought some sweet new friendships that I treasure, it seems also to be leading toward a trip to Israel.  And to personally deliver quilts as hand-crafted heirlooms for Holocaust survivors there, what a huge blessing and honor.  The idea for the trip entered my brain and recurred enough times that my husband and I filled out applications to work with my friend’s ministry, only to have her tell me over the phone that they’d been praying for musicians to come.  Interestingly the music question on the application was only a small portion of page 2 of a total 5 pages, and it provided only a single blank for answering.  We listed guitar, oboe, voice, and some other possibilities, having no inkling of how the ministry office had been praying.  And actually my husband wasn’t relishing the notion of traipsing through airports with a big, bulky guitar, so I asked my friend if he should bring his guitar.  She replied that someone recently donated a guitar to their ministry, and my husband could be first in line to play.  How sweet of the Lord to keep making the trip more attractive!  Now it’s not just a story of quilting but also music.  That part about their prayer keeps replaying in my head, and the jaw of my heart figuratively drops each time I recount it.  Numbers 22 tells of God speaking through the unlikely mouth of a donkey.  First Kings 17 explains how God sent ravens to deliver bread and meat to Elijah.  Today the Lord prepares a girl who knows little about sewing to become a quilter for the sake of Holocaust survivors in Israel, taking with her a husband whom the Lord inspired as well and some music He's been growing in both of them for years, also connecting her with some sweet sewing friends to lend aid, and supplying her with a sewing machine from someone she never met.  We’re thrilled already, and we haven’t yet set foot on the plane!  May He prepare us all with insight to recognize His sometimes unusual, unique circumstances.  May we not miss any ounce of the joy He offers.  What a magnificent God we serve.  What a magnificent God serves us.

Inspired at Smashburger

Quilting is about quilts, right?  Right.  Yet with God, there’s always more.  For 8 months now, I’ve loved the friends, the Bible study, and the prayer.  The Heirloom Project sparked my interest in the sewing, but the nuts and bolts of threading the machine still make me cringe.  Crooked seams make me sigh because that means ripping and re-sewing.  The thought of calculating and cutting new sizes and shapes of fabric makes my brain hurt till this day.  One afternoon last fall our group took a lunch break and found a table at Smashburger.  Lo and behold, we meet someone new.  One of our ladies offers the invitation, and our new friend scoots down the bench to join us.  She tells about 2 quilts she’s sewing herself, and then as if my heart had a huge dose of warmth infused into it, I realized the Lord connecting our dots with intricate detail.  We learn about her son and her jewelry work and the fact of her cancer, and how thankful was our group for the Lord introducing us all.  How tenderly we sensed His touch.  Last month she and I and her mom enjoyed a return trip to our same Smashburger, and suddenly my cringes and sighs at the sewing machine didn’t matter anymore.  The Lord loves people, and He creates endless circumstances to encourage and inspire them.  I’m hoping to help my new friend in the future when she needs a ride to one of her cancer treatments, and our group is blessed to continue to pray on her behalf.  The last verses of Psalm 23 say, “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  On this day I experienced that overflowing cup.  What a wonderful contentment to witness the Lord loving His children.

Heirloom Project

“Lord, why am I in a quilting group?  What’s my purpose?”  As much as I loved my new friends and as much as I now looked forward to Mondays, I still wondered what God had in store.  Then came this email.  My friend from Israel who ministers to Holocaust survivors sent a link to her Heirloom Project.  Anyone who makes handcrafts may donate their wares to a survivor, in turn providing a new heirloom the survivor can pass to their coming generations in replacement of what was lost in the Holocaust.  What was at the top of the Heirloom Project’s list of possible handcrafts?  Quilting.  So I wondered, “Lord, do you want me to make a quilt to send to Israel?”  Less than a week later, I’m at a friend’s house.  She’s a seamstress, so I share with her my adventure into quilting.  Suddenly her eyes light up, and she tells me to follow her to the attic.  She opens a box filled with quilting squares just waiting to be finished.  All these smaller squares were sewn by her mom’s friends who have now passed away, yet their handiwork lives on.  They need only to be incorporated into the larger size of the finished quilt.  The whole set of circumstances boggles my mind.  First the invitation to join the quilting group, which seemed such a foreign idea in the beginning.  Then the email from Israel.  Then the quilting squares in the attic.  To think how the Lord lined everything up so perfectly.  And no longer am I just hanging out with friends while they quilt.  No longer am I just the ironing girl who neatens everyone’s sewing seams.  I've now graduated to sitting at a machine to sew.  Our last meeting was my trial run.  With constant coaching and laughter mixed in, some somewhat straight stitching actually fastened 2 pieces of fabric!  We laughed away my initial apprehension when I stitched the wrong pieces together!  From hardly ever threading a needle to now having fun at the machine, the Lord has begun a work that I want to finish.  Experiencing His intricate planning leaves me in awe once again.

Splash into quilting

A fish out of water?  Why do people say that?  It’s when they’re out of their comfort zone and gasping for air.  Yet as a child of God, that figurative fish not only finds its next breath but actually flourishes.  My latest fish bowl is a quilting group.  I don’t breathe easily around sewing, and so I hesitated to jump in.  But the opportunity to spend a few hours with these new friends sounded such fun that I hopped in the car and drove over.  And I loved it!  Seems many of the girls have little experience with quilting, but Christianity has built their friendship and given purpose for them to thread their needles.  My first meeting, we brought out all the scissors and made blankets to donate to a nursing home in honor of a mom who passed away.  What a sweet, tender, fun time among friends. God has a way of weaving all kinds of us into a task.  Isaiah 11 says He brings a wolf and a lamb, a leopard and a goat, a calf and a lion to live at ease with each other.  He makes docile neighbors of those who usually aren't.  He makes swimmers of those who don't swim, and He brings together a quilting group of nonquilters, adding smiles and laughter to encourage along life’s roads.  So I ask you to think for a minute: Have you noticed any new fish bowls lately?  Ready to get wet?