Jesus & cookies

Today I’m so happy to host Christina Hoehn as guest writer.  I sat in her audience a few weeks ago as she shared these words at a cookie exchange.  Since then, she granted permission for me to post here, and I’ve edited only minimally in hope of you hearing her voice just the way she spoke to us.  The highlighting of verses and ingredients is simply to ease your referencing, in case you share with your group maybe on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve.  Now please allow me to introduce my friend Christina . . . **** You ladies may not know this about me but I love themes. For example if I'm making a meal, I think whats the theme? I'll decide on a picnic theme for example and start planning out the menu, burgers of course... In my world burgers can fit into any theme, I also need fries and fries fit any theme too... at least in my world. Now If I'm planning a party, I definitely need a theme, we'll go with Hawaiian, immediately I think cute little hula skirts, blue umbrellas, tiki torches. You see where I'm going with this. So when I asked to do the devotion for the cookie exchange, I immediately thought what's the theme? Of course it's cookies!!! Cookies...Wow, how in the world do I write a devotion about Jesus and cookies? This one ladies, had me stumped, maybe I could write about manna, that's kinda like a cookie, right? Well, I decided to keep praying and thinking about it for a few more days and as the days past the verse that kept coming back into my mind was PSALM 34:8 – “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” We as Christian ladies know this verse, we memorize this verse, we can quote this verse, in fact a lot of us have this verse up in our kitchens, I know I do, it's right next to my spatulas. But the question I ask is, do we ladies live this verse? Do our lives make others want to taste God? Look at the cookies placed in front of you, how many of you looked at them and thought man that's a good looking cookie, or thought that chunky one, that's the one I wanna try, or, they smell so so good... Insert lip smack right here! Well ladies, we are like that scrumptious cookie sitting right there in that box and everyday people are looking at us and what do they see, what do they smell? Are we big and plump and smell heavenly? Or are we brittle and burnt and taste disgusting? Let's think about that while we talk about what it takes to make a cookie smell and taste so good. We all know that to make a cookie you need ingredients and guess what? Our lives need ingredients too! (1) First we need to pour in our eggs. Eggs hold everything together. COLOSSIANS 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” This verse tells us, God holds everything together. Do people see that in your lives? Do they see God holding you together when things get hard, when you get a bad report from the doctor, when you lose your job, when your struggling with your kids? Are people seeing you run to God or running away from God? Do they see you have your sufficiency and secure in the One who holds all things together? He makes the difference. We need to tell people and show people. It needs to be modeled in our everyday lives. Let us seek out others and tell them what God has done in us. Life will go up and down, the tide goes in and out but God remains the same forever. When we're under His care He holds EVERYTHING together. (2) After eggs, comes some sugar. With sugar you get two things, one you get the taste of sweetness and two, baking in the oven you get the aroma of sweetness. Who doesn't love that? EPHESIANS 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Some key words here are: be imitators of God and walk in love SO THAT we can be a sweet smelling aroma. And I'll add so we can smell like cookies... Personally I'd rather smell like a big juicy steak... But that's a whole other devotion. We need to be loving. We need to love the lost, love the broken, love the weary and love the lonely. We've all been there, we've all walked that road. We all have life lessons that we can share and relate to others with. Somewhere on that path God picked us up, dusted us off and put us back on our feet. It's time for us to help do the same for others, show them the love, someone showed us. When Wes Bentley was here he said something that struck my heart, let me share it with you. He said "take people into your lives, into your families, into your homes, take the oddballs, the ones that aren't so cute, the unloveable ones, look for the ones no one is ministering too." That quote right there sums up love. Our love to the lost world is the sweet sugar in our cookies. (3) Now it's time to add some flour. Adding flour to our mix gives our cookies substance. HEBREWS 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” How does our faith come across to others? Is our faith like that tree that's planted by the water? Strong and solid? Or is our faith like reeds that blow back and forth in the wind? Are we that wishy washy person that can't make up their mind? Our faith should not be blowing around at every thing that comes our way. Stand firm in your faith, stand firm in knowing all that Christ has done in your life. Live a life that shows others the solidity you have in Him. (4) After our flour we pour in a little baking powder, now baking powder helps lighten the dough, but for us it means we help lighten the load for others. GALATIANS 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” This verse tells us that we should be helping to carry each other's load. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means that we should be available to each other by making time to pray with someone, perhaps grabbing a coffee with a friend or even someone you don't even know, calling someone up to see how they are doing, or sit with a crying friend. It means sacrifice a little of your time to be like Aaron and Hur. Do you remember what they did? In Exodus the children of Israel went into battle against the Amelikites and God had Moses stand there for probably what seemed like an eternity but He had Moses stand there with his arms raised up. As long as his arms were up the Israelites were winning, but as his arms lowered the Amelikites would start to win the battle. Well Aaron and Hur went along side Moses and helped him by holding Moses's arms up, talk about a heavy duty task. They could of easily been like PSH, uh no, it's hot outside and there's flies everywhere and my arms and feet will get tired and I'm a little hungry. But they didn't do that. They stood right next to Moses and battled along side with him. That ladies is an incredible example of lightening each other's loads. Btw, this doesn't mean be a doormat for everybody. Pray, use discernment, and see how God wants to use you. (5) Time to add a pinch of salt. A pinch goes aloooooong way. Two things we know about salt. One its a disinfectant and two it's a preservative. MATTHEW 5:13 says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Plain and simple, We need to be salt that rubs up against the broken flesh of this world. We shouldn't be distancing ourselves from people that need us. Ladies we need to be the light that is shining in the dark corners of the world. I heard it once said that "what we need is separation with contact without contamination." Let me say that one more time. What we need is separation WITH contact WITHOUT contamination. What does that mean? It means Be in the world but not of it... Be Set Apart but always be leading others to Him. (6) (7) We have two more key ingredients to add to our mix, vanilla and chocolate chips. I decided to put these two together because vanilla keeps our cookies from being bland and chocolate chips make cookies fun and both point to an exciting and enticing cookie or in our case an exciting and enticing life. PROVERBS 17:22 says, “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” A lot of people live their lives thinking being a Christian is boring. Can you blame them? Look what they see on TV, read in magazines, see in some of our lives. But ladies being a Christian isn't bland or boring. Being a Christian is like those chocolate chips in a cookie, once you bite into it, you wish you had bit into the chocolate sooner. Show the world you CAN be a Christian and have fun, in fact it's like medicine for your body. Let the joy that's overtaken you ooze out onto them because Proverbs tells us a lost soul has dried bones. After all these ingredients have been mixed together our little dough balls get baked in the oven. Now ovens have to produce heat, in order to get beautiful cookies. It's the same for us, our lives are going to face the Refiners fire. But remember this... when the fire in your life is the hottest, stand still, for later on it produces a harvest and then we will be able to say with Job, “When he tested me, I will come forth as gold” (JOB 23:10). So ladies, as we go throughout the day, the week, the month and the year, let us remember to look at the ingredients in our lives and see where we need to add a little more to our mixture because we want to make sure that our lives are Taste and See.. worthy. ****

Radiant at Chick-fil-A

Question:  How does the Lord’s light shine through people?  Answer:  Visit Chick-fil-A.  One Saturday afternoon, the Lord introduced me to a man.  My husband and I entered the restaurant while this man talked at the door with some ladies.  Such contagious laughter drew me to glance a second time, and instantly I noticed his smile that beamed so far and so wide.  Even more, he seemed to honestly care for these ladies in a way that intrigued me.  Minutes later I saw the man more closely when he approached our table to offer a drink refill.  My husband handed him the single cup we shared, yet the man returned with 2 cups.  “My boss says people are important,” he grinned.  In that moment, my whole body paused to recognize the wisdom in his words.  Therein lay the reason his smile radiated so brightly.  So truly joyful was he in the moment and so content in his manner that I soon realized my eyes releasing tears, and I wondered why.  His thoughtful interaction with people and the ease with which he moved about—he portrayed a genuine love of life that lifted me out of our more commonly cynical world.  I regularly ask the Lord to impart to me His love of people.  I don’t know exactly what that love always looks like, but meeting this man gave me a good glimpse.  The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  And  I welcome His light to shine in my heart, both for my sake and for the sake of those I meet.  I sit to imagine what God’s glory looked like to shine over Bethlehem all those years ago.  A star that led people to know the purest of love.  A star that shines still now in the hearts of men.  May He shine His light upon you today.  May He shine through you.  Merry Christmas.

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.

Only on Wednesdays

Something about Wednesdays.  October 8 - My car wouldn’t start.  October 15 - We were patching up plumbing problems, so I stayed at the house.  October 22 - The car wouldn’t start again, yet it worked just fine all the other days since we replaced the battery 2 weeks ago.  Each of these Wednesdays I’m not visiting patients in the hospital as planned.  I’m also not praying in front of the abortion center.  So I paused to think:  Why now?  What's happening now that might cause this?  Answer:  2 things.  (1) My husband and I set out to read the Bible in 90 days.  (2) I’ve been memorizing Romans 4 and 5.  Only these 2 things could I think of that were new in these recent weeks.  I asked friends for their insight, and most gave the same answer.  The chaplain at the hospital posed, “Do you get the idea the enemy doesn’t want you here?”  And that was pretty much what my friends said.  The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Yet 2 Timothy 4:18 says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom . . .”  Second Chronicles 16:9 attests to the eyes of the Lord always roaming the earth in our defense.  So all the time the devil is on the prowl to destroy, the eyes of the Lord are on the alert for our benefit.  The battle is spiritual.  We feel the heat.  The gunfire scrapes pretty close sometimes.  While I don’t consider every trial to come from Satan, in this instance the timing is curious.  Hospitals and abortion centers are certainly battlegrounds.  If Satan is on the prowl and mad about my praying there, he could be extra mad about the Bible reading and memorization.  It's certainly his mindset to try to thwart anything the Lord loves.  But the Lord wins ultimately.  Through every trial, through every irritating event, through every attempt to distract, the Lord provides us a way out.  And for my husband and me, the distractions and the rescues continue.  For that second morning when the car wouldn’t start, the Lord pointed us to the perfect YouTube post to replace the starter solenoid in our old 2000 Expedition.  Next we realized the front brakes starting to grind, and the Lord gave us cool weather for replacing them on a Sunday afternoon.  Following that, I drove to the furniture store to pick up our new bed and realized it wouldn’t fit in the car.  But there again, the Lord supplied the idea to use ratcheting tie-downs across the luggage rack.  Then came an incident in the church parking lot, which was of a different nature this time and not a mechanical problem.  It was a case of my mouth spewing.  I complained about the way my husband parked the car, and he bit back with sharp words of his own, revealing just how on-edge we’d really been.  Our bundle of tension had sat barely beneath the surface all this time, and it was amazing how the Lord protected us that we hadn't erupted earlier.  Though now our damages reached into the heart, still they could be forgiven.  Altogether our problems have been merely hassles.  The tug-of-war has made us tired, yet the Lord has replenished.  And I'm determined all the more not to relent on reading the Bible or on memorization.  The song “Onward, Christian Soldiers” comes to mind, for Christ really does lead us against the foe.  You, me, all of us.  Be encouraged that He fights on our behalf.

90-day plan

My message delivered 3 different times.  First, it was the change of church.  The Lord stirred in us to begin attending Calvary Chapel, which emphasizes the reading of the whole Bible in sequence.  Second, it was a phone call with a friend who explained her recent thrill in reading the Bible in 90 days—every book, every chapter, every verse in sequence.  Third, it was hearing the testimony of Adam’s Road, a group of musicians who speak of having been saved from Mormonism.  Their conversion began with a Christian pastor posing the challenge to read the complete Holy Bible.  This message of entirety flashed bright for me like a huge neon sign I couldn’t ignore.  And my world has not been the same since.  My husband and I set out on this 90-day reading plan.  (If you're interested, just search "schedule 90 days Bible.")  Reading 10–15 chapters per night, we were blessed.  We came across verses I didn’t recall.  In Genesis 6:20 and 7:9, I didn’t remember that the animals came to Noah.  I’d imagined this picture of him loading the animals, but maybe I never pondered how he corralled them for loading.  In Exodus 6:20 and 15:20, I’d forgotten Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were siblings.  In Leviticus 4, there was this wonderful prominence of forgiveness that I thought of being more in the New Testament than the Old.  In Numbers 16:48, Aaron stops a plague just by standing amidst the people!  That’s absolutely amazing!  Then in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, the Lord gives this image of how personal He is for us.  Moses dies, and the Lord Himself buries him.  That idea sent my brain just wondering, just pondering in awe.  Seriously, how did God personally bury Moses?  And it’s been blessing upon blessing with each book we continue to read.  This Bible is God’s voice.  He spells out His love for us and His forgiveness, and the accounts of His presence thousands of years ago still affect us today.  May we encourage each other to read.  May we know Him personally therein.

Mountain range in the living room

Our washing machine quit washing.  The agitator quit agitating, though for 14 years it served us well.  We bought a new machine, and the fix should be simple, right?  But we rarely looked behind the old washer.  If we had, we would’ve seen the corroded water valves at the wall.  All right, point taken, we’ll just buy some new valves.  But wait a minute.  A closer look shows the old valves were soldered.  Soldered?  What?!  Soldering didn’t fit in our definition of simple.  Nevertheless, don’t fret.  Just check YouTube’s supply of fix-it demos, and usually that works.  And thereby we stepped out on our yellow brick road of plumbing repair.  We visited the plumbing aisle at Lowe’s and met a girl who was helpful.  Next trip, we met a guy who offered a slightly different idea on how to install in such a small space.  Lowe’s was out of one part, so we drove by Home Depot to talk to a third person who explained about using compression connectors.  The task at the house fared pretty well actually, except for some tiny leaks that bubbled at the connectors.  We finally opted to shut off the water and try again tomorrow.  By the time I entered the stores the next day, no one had those parts in stock.  Still looking to solve the situation, we wondered if one more turn of the wrench would make those bubbles disappear.  But as the wrench tightened, the copper tube broke and water gushed with full force.  Spewing straight up and arching straight down, that force of water flooded the room.  As fast as I grabbed towels, and as fast as my husband ran to turn off the water main and bring in the wet vac, the water won the battle.  It seeped underneath the wall and into the next room.  And no one enjoys a sloshy carpet, especially at 1 AM.  Seriously, as we assessed our situation, we were thankful the cats didn’t run away when we scrambled to lift the garage door.  Nevertheless we had a big mess, and all I knew was to ask the Lord what to do next.  We moaned to move furniture.  We groaned to lift the wet carpet.  But we lifted as best we could and propped the carpet on sawhorses to blow air underneath to dry.  In the morning, I just stared.  I took a deep breath and reluctantly touched the carpet, only to find water still seeping toward the piano.  The fans underneath had helped, but I needed a better way to separate the carpet pad.  At that point, my brain overwhelmed.  Emotional numbness set in, but I still had the awareness to seek the Lord.  Soon I found myself sitting to play the piano instead of trying to move it.  “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” came to mind, and I sang a heartfelt rendition that freed my ability to think.  What had weakened in me now began to restore.  Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”  Soon the notion came to cut away the carpet pad and take it outside to dry separately.  That heavy carpet rolled back to a point I hadn’t reached before, and I pressed it with my knee in order to sop the innermost spots of water.  I lifted that bulky old carpet to an extent I could lay it up over the sawhorses I had repositioned.  I look back now and contemplate how amazingly the Lord made that happen.  Later some stronger connectors from a plumbing supply store solved our mechanical woes, but it was the Lord rescuing my mental state that saved the day.  He was my refuge, strength and help, just as the Psalm says.  Today I stand so thankful for having experienced the Lord’s rescue.  And humorously, the sawhorses holding the carpet provided our cats their own personal mountain range in the living room, which they quite fondly sat atop all the rest of last week. 

Paper-clipped

People devote themselves to things.  It’s a compliment, usually.  Merriam-Webster defines devotion in terms of loyalty and love.  To devote means to commit in a sincere and serious way.  So it’s curious about these writings we call devotionals.  We buy a book or subscribe to emails, and they’re short and quick.  They have a Bible verse, writer’s comments, and prayer all wrapped up pretty in a 5-minute package.  But what about the other 1,435 minutes in the day?  How devoted are we?  Consider someone devoted to gardening.  He tends his vegetables in all kinds of weather—rain, drought, sunshine, or snow.  Consider the devoted parent who exhausts his energy laughing one day and inevitably grieving the next, yet he perseveres.  How shallow or deep is my devotion?  It's not admirable that I sometimes postpone my time with God.  My brain entertains the thought, “Just 2 more emails and then I’ll pray.”  But when the emails finish, a friend calls to talk, and I find prayer postponing once again.  I hear people say they pray in the car on the way to work.  Praying in the car can be good, but if we postpone prayer in order to be in the car first, the prayer is secondary and not the purest of devotion.  We're paper-clipping God to another task.  If I set aside a morning stroll just to listen and speak with the Lord, that’s different than choosing vigorous exercise and paper-clipping prayer to the back side of my power walk.  In 1 Chronicles 28:9, David tells Solomon, “. . . acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.  If you seek him, he will be found by you . . .”  In my laundry room, I have a box of colored paper clips from a bunco party.  The green, blue, and pink clips create a cute package, and they're much more fun than the plain old silver, yet it's the order of papers to be clipped that's more important.  Will the paper signifying my devotion to the Lord be first?  Will I clip the other sheets behind or in front?  What about you?  How do the papers line up in the 1,440 minutes of your day?

Donate & Dump

What’s the big deal about a bunch of rocks?  Seems crazy for me to wake up thinking about them, but actually the idea isn’t totally random.  Let me explain.  Last Saturday, our section of San Antonio was hosting Donate & Dump, which encourages residents to clean up and clean out.  The neighborhood brings in a donation truck for reusables and a trash truck for dumping everything else.  My husband and I loaded our give-aways into the car before we went to sleep Friday night, and I asked, “Lord, is there anything we should load tomorrow for dumping?”  At 4:30 AM, I awoke to the thought of rocks.  But what rocks?  And what would I do with these rocks?  I was too groggy to think.  When the clock glared 5:00, I was frustrated to still be awake, yet I began praying about many things and reciting my Romans 5 that I’ve been memorizing.  All the while, the idea of rocks kept recurring.  Next thing I know the clock shines 8:30, and my brain has progressed toward the specific thought of loading rocks from the backyard.  Suddenly I’m excited.  This is now making sense.  I throw off the bed blanket and walk into the living room to tell my husband.  For years, we’ve had piles of rocks in our backyard.  Trees have died, we’ve had to dig, the earth’s been rocky, and our regular trash pick-up doesn’t accept rocks.  The regular trash service says we need to drive our rocks across town to a landfill, and I’ve never arranged to drive that distance.  Consequently our yard has been decorated with piles of rocks that gradually blended into the scenery so much that I’d forgotten about them.  We just step around a pile here and a pile there as if they’re no longer eyesores.  So my husband and I happily loaded our rocks and drove over to Donate & Dump.  Everybody lent a hand to unload, and like shedding the thickest layer of any grime, what a relief came upon us!  We returned home to stand in the backyard and enjoy a gaze at clean land.  I’d forgotten what clean looked like.  The green seemed more crisp.  The brown appeared more fertile and fresh.  No clutter.  No blots on the landscape.  In fact, the air I breathed felt more free.  I wondered how we ever let those rock piles blend in.  Being without them now let me realize the hazards that build through carelessness.  The Bible talks about purity in Psalm 24:3-4, saying, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who may stand in his holy place?  He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.”  No heaviness of pressure or any hurdle of misplaced priority.  Just welcomed simplicity of living with the Lord.  So I encourage you to avoid clutter.  Avoid the piles of junk that interfere.  I thank God for waking me at 4:30.

My Hindu friend

Ever want to share your favorite thing with somebody, but they’re not interested?  When it’s your favorite flavor of ice cream, the disinterest isn’t earth-shattering.  When it’s trust in Jesus as Savior, the disinterest hits hard.  We’re talking an eternity of effect here.  There’s a lady I’ve prayed for, a lady I love, a lady I hope will ask Jesus to be her Savior one day.  Right now she professes Hinduism.  I want her to know the love of Christ, and I’ve asked the Lord to use me for her sake.  Yet He has shown me to wait on Him for timing.  So eager to share one morning, I walked to her desk, only to see her reading a book.  Not just any book, but a book by a Christian author who writes about Christian living in contemporary terms.  And suddenly my eagerness withdrew.  How gentle a gesture for the Lord to show me He had it covered.  He wouldn’t need my services that day; at least He wouldn’t be employing my lips right then to speak of Him for the sake of my friend.  And so no words did I utter.  Rather, I just grinned to witness Him at work.  Really He is miles ahead of us all the time, orchestrating the seconds and minutes of every hour.  And though my friend has not yet claimed Christianity, the Lord led her to a bookshelf where her fingers selected a Christian title.  My job is to pray and be ready, and I ask the Lord to spill His words from me at the perfect time.  Psalm 40 begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”  Verse 5 says, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”  And on this day, the act of waiting actually posed pleasure.  To not be ashamed of the Gospel—yes, of course, be willing to share the name of Jesus.  But seek Him first.  Be content in His timing.

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?