Flip the script

Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me. – Ignatius of Loyola

God writes straight with crooked lines.

Each of these are essentially the same prayer.

Here I am Lord.

A few weeks ago some pretty horrible memories came flooding back. Essentially showing me two things 1) there is still a need to continue forgiving; and 2) that flipping the script is a good and indeed holy, thing.

The memory flooding back in this moment is much sweeter. As a group we had Mass together once a week to keep our focus and build our community. Right after lunch I’d go over to get set up and have quiet time before the Blessed Sacrament. Part of this time included “Take Lord, receive…” Week after week I’d pray this. I longed then, I long now to Love God with my whole being in a way where the difficult times are mitigated by Peace, and Trust in Him, where the Peace is sweet as water from the rock, and the reaching for His hand in the midst of the storm is second nature, no not second First nature.

Snippets of other hymns hum in my thoughts, knowing the song and yet the words elusive, yet sing of the same Faith and Trust in God through the difficult moments of life, even when they last for a long time. The difficult moments, and the beautiful moments when it’s easy to be a woman of Faith. Faith is hard then too. Trust is hard then too. Because everything seems great, and hunky dory, and flowing along. As a quilter the stitching is smooth, and moves easily from my thoughts to my fingers. What I see in my head is expressed easily in fabric and thread.

Just as I long to be a good quilter I long to be a woman of Faith, I long to be a whole person focused on the God who loves me deeply, and let all I do quilting, writing, prayer, giving, receiving be al for Him. This life of faith is at once about my relationship with God, and my relationship with you. It is expressed in the digging into quilting, digging into connecting deeply with God, connecting with those who have trod this life of Faith, and those who will walk it. Quilting is as much about learning how and why, showing how and why, and then being free enough to let go and do.

Not all who wander are lost. That sums up where this moment seems to exist, in the wandering and in the wondering. In the desire to know more, to know God more deeply in his friendships with others and to know God more deeply in the quilting

When I made Wanderlost <— the design and the quilt look completely different. As I wandered through the making I simply let it happen both in the fabric & trail place and also in the quilting.

While I wander the prayer is “Take Lord, receive” and “let me respond to the call out upon the waters” and “let this stitching reflect You Lord” and “shine your light” and “it’s not about me.”

How does this flip the script? Hang with me friends and we’ll talk about a different way of looking at Deborah, and Sarai/Sarah and Rahab, and other women in the Scriptures. It was in this moment of reading more about Deborah wherein I realized much of what I believed I knew transformed to, “hey wait, there’s so much depth here and it’s so different from what I’d been taught.” I understand that what I was taught was necessary but it’s time to plumb the depths. It is a process rather than a one and done event. That transformation, like becoming a machine quilter and machine quilting teacher, takes time and effort. That milestones, progress comes over time, with some coming sooner and some taking longer times to reach.

Flipping the internal script is a gift, a turning toward the light, a willingness to open the eyes, stand up, take the Fathers hand and walk the walk of Faith. As a quilter it means taking the risk to do the quilt that’s living inside my head, knowing this is a song of Trust to the God who loves me and gave me this gift. It is stitching outside the prescribed lines and aiming for the depth and beauty that is there should I open my eyes of Faith and stitch with the Reckless Abandon of one in love.

With all my prayer for you,

Teri