This weekend didn't start out like I had planned. Due to reservation mix ups we didn't get to celebrate the 4th of July on the coast. What do you do when life doesn't go the way you want, go to God. Besides writing I feel the most "free-est" when I am sewing. I talk to God, sing to God, worship God and spend time with Him as I am stitching.
Yesterday I started my Snoopy Quilt that I have talked about for a year. Bear with me as I tell you about what the Holy Spirit shared with me as the machine stitched the images for my quilt blocks.
I have been blessed with a home that has a 400 sq. ft. family room that I have turned into the office / sewing studio. My row of sewing machines face the sliding glass door that looks out onto our deck - great view for spending time with God!
I was at the embroidery machine before the sun came up this morning. As the sun started peeking through the trees that surround the deck, the sun shone BRIGHTLY through the only gap in between the trees. Of course it shown in my eyes, I closed my eyes and turned my head. I felt in my spirit, "I am with you and you shut your eyes and turn your head just like the world." Wow, right?!?!
He showed me that during our storms we seek out the Light, seeking Him. Needing Him in our storms so we seek Him and His protection and provisions.
During the peaceful calm days He is shining brightly in our lives and we go about "our" business / day (what have you) and we close our eyes and turn our heads when He wants us to seek Him.
I was trying to finish the above quilt block to get a photo of the Light on my project, by the time I had finished, the Light had moved behind the trees. He showed me how He has a time and a season for each phase of His plan for our lives, if we don't embrace it, we will miss it.
Next lesson. Yesterday I had a bobbin issue that destroyed one of my blocks so bad that thread was in a ball under the project and inside the machine. The project even came out of the hoop due to this bondage that took place with all the thread. The bobbin was distorted from not filling properly and it caused major problems to the stitching.
I was shown, what are you allowing to fill you up that is distorting you and your walk with God. Eating too much? What media are you allowing into your thoughts & being? Who are you listening to?
The first half of the project looked beautiful, however the more that the distorted bobbin worked, the more that the project was affected and eventually destroyed. Needless to say, I had to throw out that bobbin as it was not a good bobbin and couldn't be used.
What in your life is distorting your life? What is messing up your life? It started out nice but it eventually has put you in bondage destroying your life? It could be an unsuspecting noun;a person, place or thing that just needs to go. It might be an action, what verb just needs to kick rocks?
Moving on to the next lesson. The above bobbin mess happened when I walked away from the machine letting it go on its own without my paying attention to what it was doing. However just sitting at the machine wasn't enough.
Certain areas of the pattern programs the machine would get going rather fast causing the thread to loop itself around one of the thread guides and if left that way would eventually causing it to get stuck causing it to break and lock up the machine and possibly breaking the needle. Can't have the needle breaking - it is an essential part of the stitching process. I had to pay attention while sitting at the machine. I had to watch the thread and put my finger next to the thread guide to make sure that the thread stay on course.
I was shown that is like life. This life of ours can get going pretty fast and we can drift off course...off our path of righteousness. We have to be intentional in this life, we have to make sure that we don't drift to the right or the left when God needs us to go straight. As the path turns if we aren't paying attention we miss the turn, right off the path we go. We ask for forgiveness and get back on the path. Asking God to help guide us so we don't let ourselves get stuck, locking up our lives and possible breaking areas of our lives that are essential to the plan.
Not done with the lessons yet. I had to fill more bobbins to keep going this morning. Due to the distorted bobbin of yesterday, I really paid attention to how I wound those bobbins. I was intently watching and listening as those bobbins filled. I let them tell me when they were done. The machine will stop when it feels that they are filled however I have learnt that the bobbins will tell me if I will listen. (Just like our bodies will tell us when we are hungry, when we are satisfied, when we are full and overfull...we just have to listen.)
On one of the bobbins I heard a "snap", stopped the machine and checked out the bobbin. Everything seemed fine so I continued. I watched as the bobbin got taller and stopped the machine. Once I stopped the machine the bobbin did a jack-in-the box move and the thread pushed the top of the bobbin off and the thread looked like a spring that was released from being compressed...flowing toward me off the machine. The bobbin had broke. I heard God say don't try to save the bobbin or the bobbin thread - you can't repair it, it will continue to mess things up. I got rid of it and moved on to the next bobbin.
Is there an area of your life that is just broke? Some things we repair however there are some things that we just have to discard and move on in life. Listen to God. If there is something that just doesn't work with the plan God has for you? Is it in line with the Word of God? You can't save everything or everyone. That was a hard lesson for me this week. Sometimes you have to know when God needs you to let go and move on.
God wasn't done with me. Sewing machines are engineered for the thread to go in one direction. Once threaded if you need to change threads you snip at the thread spool and pull the thread out through the needle. If you tried to save that thread and pulled it back the wrong way through the machine you will cause thread lint or fibers to be inside the machine causing things to muck up the workings of the machine. It might not happen right away but after time it will cause havoc. Not to mention if you continue to go the wrong way you will damage the machine over time.
God is the ONE WAY. You sin and go back the wrong way, you will muck up your life. The Holy Spirit cannot live where there is sin. Just like my machine came with an instruction book on how to operate my machine, God gave us His Word. The Bible tells us the way God wants us to live, HIS WAY.
For my embroidered blocks, I am having to change thread colors once the machine is ready for the next step of the pattern. I got in a hurry to change colors, excited to see the picture coming alive with each thread color. I snipped the thread at the spool, pulled the spool, grabbed the next color and as I started to thread the machine I saw that I hadn't removed the previous color and pulled it out.
God showed me that we have to remove the old before bringing in the new. As excited as we get to start our new season, we have to finish with the previous season. Don't rush through forgetting that you left that step undone. Mixing the old with the new isn't part of the plan. Imagine if I would have left that previous thread in the machine as I threaded the new color...if I didn't throw off the tension which is very important to stitch performance, I would have thrown off the image with that second thread. Finish yesterday before working on today so the foundation is set for tomorrow. Time and Seasons for everything.
Also as I start with a new color before I start stitching the pattern I pull up the bobbin thread bringing to the top. I hold both the thread and bobbin thread as the machine starts and after a few stitches I stop the machine, tie the two threads together making a little knot and snipping the tails. The thread is now anchored, unable to get in the way of the pattern. The bobbin has been brought to the front also anchored and unable to get knotted behind the project, eventually becoming a huge mess behind the image.
Are you anchored in the word of God? Or are you just going all willie-nillie making a mess of your life. The front may look all pretty but behind the facade that the world sees is a knotted tangled mess that will cause problems when it comes time for the next phase...the quilting can bring those messy bobbin threads to the surface. Those things you are ignoring or not dealing with will surface when you don't want them to. Better to deal with them properly while they are no big deal.
Next was the pattern programmer gave the list of colors to be used for each step for the image to come out as they had designed. I am all for following directions and patterns however this programmer designed Linus's blanket to be Lilac. The characters clothes may change colors but Linus's blanket is ALWAYS baby blue. So I went with my understanding of the Peanuts Characters and changed up the colors.
The programmer designed their patterns on what they thought would look good in lieu of what the original artist Charles Schultz had designed when he created the characters. In this life the world may tell us what way we are to live our lives that is not in line with our Creator. Stick to your beliefs, if God tells you that you are one thing, don't let the world tell you that you are another. God created you, let God dictate what you are to be. Don't conform to this world or their ideas. God has a great design planned for your life, don't deviate.
Okay this next one made me laugh...I was changing my thread and picked up the wrong color and threaded it and even pulled up the bobbin about to start stitching when I realized my error. I clipped my threads and re-threaded the correct color thread. As I was re-threading the machine God showed me, when you are in error, stop what you are doing and go back to the correct way. Don't be ashamed that you made a mistake, ask forgiveness and turn around, get back on the correct path for your life. (That is called repenting.)
By the way the colors were black and white, just like His word, we are the ones that tend to grey it up...we tend to make things harder than they need to be.
Just like I have been struggling on what to write about. Been asking God, "What do YOU want me to write?" He talked to me during my freedom sewing. Talk about true freedom, having God break you from the bondage of this world that is freedom!! I thank God everyday for HIM. I thank God that He sent Jesus to die for my sins and the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit that raised Him from the dead so that I too could have that power.
Thank you for reading about my Stitching with the Spirit. God is so good that He will talk to us if we will just listen. God cares about us and everything that we want to do. He created my love for sewing and quilting, why wouldn't He spend time with me as I do what I love?
Invite God into the activities that you love and see what He has to say to you.
Until Next Time, God Bless!!!
