PS I’ve been waking up with songs again. I’m enjoying it. This morning’s song went with the reminders of being God’s well loved kid from the Charismatic retreat. Enjoy.
Often it takes some time to unpack an experience to learn all that it has to teach you. It’s the same thing with quilts, sometimes they take a long time for many reasons. Sometimes we don’t finish because they’ve taught us all they could. The event can happen years before we’re fully aware of the depth of the experience. It’s a good thing we have memories that provide us with links to our life and quilt history.
I’m still reflecting on the Charismatic Conference with gratitude for the experiences and how they form me at this moment. Twenty years ago while attending another conference as the Vocations Coordinator I participated in a Life in the Spirit Seminar. The memory of that weekend seems so distant because so much life happened. The presenter spoke of the beauty of different postures of prayer: on our knees, standing hands raised, standing head bowed hands lowered these basic examples of common prayer. Singing can be a posture of prayer with our voice and body as we employ all of who we are in that moment. Since that moment hands lowered head bowed is pretty common for this pray-er. This fits the introvert in me and also that part of me who experienced deeply that “not good enough”.
At the conference I experienced a strong pull in my soul to raise my head and hands. The head raised, looking up as the tears flowed accepting the grace of that moment. Head raised looking toward the light, instead of staring at shadows, looking at the dark moments. At the time of that Life in the Spirit Seminar I needed the permission to have that prayer posture not so much because I felt less than, but hands raised in praise didn’t fit that moment of prayer. Now I’m giving myself permission to raise hands in praise prayer because Going All In is so good. I go all in while quilting, why not go all in and Praise Jesus, Praise the Father, Praise the Spirit, Blessed Trinity, Undivided Unity. Being grateful, going all in to be grateful for this moment of life is part of this current prayer time.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to make the effort to complete and enter a quilt for a huge quilt show. I’m going all in on this. 
I played a bit of chicken as I continued to stitch bubble after tiny bubble. I wanted to see what it would look like to use the entire spool.
The quilt isn’t flat however here is what 273 +/- yards of 50 weight silk looks like. I started filling in some of those intentionally left open spaces with an orange. Like moments in life that are difficult God knows the full picture, we can only see step by step as things fall into place. I know right now that this quilt has a couple of spots where the seam ripper should have come out however they are there, and there they shall stay. Not because of the due date but because in the grand scheme of this quilt, with the density of quilting it’ll go unnoticed.
All I knew about this quilt when I started is that center tree, and surrounded by a sunrise or sunset. The quilt has since earned the name “Lenny” in honor of my husbands uncle and in memory of Leonard Cohen. I’m enjoying the beauty of this quilt as it comes to fruition. What I see in my head is happening. I’m diving in, going deep, experiencing the beauty of quilting. Getting into that prayerful zone.
Enjoy the Creative Spirit of God this day.
God bless,
Teri
A Quilter's Heart 