To everything there is a season

From Ecclesiastes 3 (USCCB)

1^* There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.

2A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

I’m not quite sure how to write this post. Thinking and trying to be prayerful through a couple of situations brought  this passage of scripture to the forefront of my mind and with it a bit of an earworm.  Click on the link and listen to the Byrds sing. I spent 2 hours in a conversation that left me spent, gutted and concerned.  You know that ache in your heart that comes when you want to help someone and can not?  That’s the kind of ache that’s happening.  Or the kind of ache that comes from being reminded that letting go of expectations of others is necessary, tough, difficult even, necessary none the less.  Yep that kind of heart ache.

3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.

4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

5A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

The question was asked, “how do you keep going with your artwork?”  I can assure you it’s not so easy.  It’s just something you do.  In writing “It wasn’t all bad” on TerifiCreations it was true, it wasn’t all bad.  It’s been darn hard to go through that place where I did not want to quilt or be creative.  I quilted when I could and honored the times when I could not.  There is something important, something essential about honoring that time, particularly understanding that the strongest resistance was in quilting my own work.  Letting go of a project that I really wanted to participate in gave a deep sense of relief.  Confirming that letting go was a good thing.  Have you ever felt that deep sense of relief in letting go?

6A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Artwork and quilting comes in seasons and waves.  Seasons if you will.  In my opinion quilting is a journey.  We try a variety of fabrics, styles and techniques until we find one that resonates with us.  Sometimes getting stuck in one place happens because we think that this is what quilting is “supposed to be”.  Sometimes we get stuck thinking that we have to see a quilt all the way to completion, when perhaps that quilt has taught us everything we need to learn.  Setting aside a project doesn’t mean we’re giving up, it means we’re allowing ourselves time to think.  There is something so right about that.

9^a What profit have workers from their toil? 10I have seen the business that God has given to mortals to be busied about. 11^b God has made everything appropriate to its time, but has put the timeless^* into their hearts so they cannot find out, from beginning to end, the work which God has done. 12^c I recognized that there is nothing better than to rejoice and to do well during life. 13Moreover, that all can eat and drink and enjoy the good of all their toil—this is a gift of God. 14I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered. 15^{* d} What now is has already been; what is to be, already is: God retrieves what has gone by.

If your like me, quilting is your work, not necessarily paid work, but your work, your artistry, ministry, the thing you do that brings you life and great joy and sometimes great frustration.  It’s those frustrating times and how we handle them that offer us the best opportunities for growth as a quilter and as a person.

And to those conversations and situations the right time will come for them to be resolved.  One situation has given me a great gift, and at the moment of that gift I didn’t see it that way however it is a gift.  One that has to do with time and seasons and opportunities and great love.

Happy Quilting!!

Teri