Repair!

When the opportunity happens, and I’m in the car with SiriusXM at just the right time either Jennifer Fulweiler or Hallie Lord are on. One of them had Leticia Ochoa Adams as a guest, and I really enjoyed something about her, so on and off I’ve been reading her blog. This week, Death Be Not Proud speaks of the anniversaries of a series of deaths and of the loss of her son. I can’t even. There is heartache, there is beauty, there is life.

What I love of Leticia’s writing is the passion and heart. The love of the Lord, the reliance on the Lord through all of the heartache and pain. It’s so easy to blame God when the stuff of life goes kaflooie. It’s so easy to just walk away. There are times when walking away seems exactly the thing to do. And a brief review of the Gospel story, many walked away, it was too hard. What’s telling is that in those moments when people walked away Jesus didn’t run after them saying, “hey come back!”, the door was open, the path clear, God honors the free will he gave us.

Through the heartache in Leticia’s 2017 it would have been so easy to walk away from her faith. She didn’t. She stuck with, stuck in, relied on, clung to and actively participated in her faith. Like so many saints along the way Leticia gives witness to God’s love.

It’s been no secret that the last few years have been something of a long struggle. I can guarantee you that I’ve probably made these struggles worse than they’ve needed to be. It happens, and it’s the habit of a lifetime. It’s okay. To quote Brene Brown, “we are hardwired for struggle”. And apparently I embrace the struggle.

While I was quilting the other day something went kaflooie. I heard it, I felt the quilt tighten up under the needle/foot. And I kind of let it go for a moment, dumb. move. leaving a birds nest on the back of the needle. That was a real pain to deal with. A few minutes later the top side developed a pleat. So off the machine it went, into the naughty quilt corner with the original intent of tossing that sucker out. But, the more I think about this the less time this will sit in the corner contemplating it’s own navel. Nope. The seam ripper will make an appearance a little bit sooner. It’s kind of like going to confession, taking out all the stuff that doesn’t work, doesn’t quite fit, and needs to be dealt with. I’ll thread up the machine with water soluble thread and do some basting as there is a lot of open space, the basting will assure me – at least to some degree – that the top won’t continue puckering.

Things going kaflooie in the quilting is nothing new. I’ve walked away before, tossed things aside, only to come back to them later on. I come back because the time away has given me the space to think things through, coming up with a solution for the quilt, which is then something to pass onto students and customers.

In her writing Leticia reminds us not only of God’s faithfulness, and her own, also somethings just take time. Giving ourselves the space and time, the prayer and commitment, the okay to walk away, the okay to return is a good thing. The possibility exists that we wait too long to resolve, to go to Confession, to return to the Lord, to repair, to seek peace.

May you see the Grace and Mercy of God through this day, and in your stitching,

God bless,

Teri