God's Quilting of My and Your Life, What does it Look like when Finished?

Browsing through the blogs this morning and on one in particular that caught my eye, a Beautiful Quilt, from blog Madness and Mess that she completed, three years it took I believe, AND she did every bit of it applique/stitching, Absolutely beautiful, amazing work. See photo below:



see: http://kiwicarole.blogspot.com/2010/02/next-one-finished.html

On the blogs I see so many beautiful quilts and I think, Where do they get so much beauty from inside them to see and create so much beauty? These women have a gift, what else can I say and they are kind enough to share their gifts with the world. Anyway so I saw a few other quilts on her blog that she created/finished and this one, I want to show here, from same blog/same woman artist-quilter [link below photo]



http://kiwicarole.blogspot.com/2009/12/another-quilt-is-finished_18.html


And it got me to thinking, God, what would my life/self look like as a Quilt? And I got really sad, because I'm near the end [latter years] and my life and my self have not been pretty, in fact, more like downright toxic and poison, from the abuse in childhood to the horrible broken relationships and the horrible things I did to others and the years I was a hateful hypocritical and materialist Christian to the years I was an angry hateful revolutionary activist--broken, angry, wounded and full of hate and suspicion and also self-righteousness, that base nature but also the ONLY means I learned, from young age to protect and defend myself from abuse--those walls.

And to see the damage those toxins and sins do to Others I touched along the way, whether on purpose or by my being in darkness--ignorance, and well,

that's one ugly ass quilt and one that the only thing to do with it, is to burn it.

The colors of black and gray threads, with a tad of pink here and there thrown in, for those few times I was of sane mind and compassionate heart, though always with that dark thread, running through,

and inside I cried. God, how can you make anything beautiful from That?!!

How do you weave all that ugliness into something beautiful? There is just no way...and HE said,

by putting it all under the Blood.



And we begin the Quilt with the color of Red.

You see, for so long I tried to weave my own quilt--inside of me and out in my life, and all I came up with, was an ugly black horrid mess.

And there is only one thing to do with it--

NAIL IT TO THE CROSS.

Because it's deserving of ONLY that. What you need to realize, reading this, is that I weaved that quilt believing for many years, excluding those I was backslidden, BELIEVING I was Born Again, Christian, that I was Right.

WRONG.

I did all the formulas and rebuking the devil and confessing sin and adhering to this doctrine and that doctrine and well, there was no real Change, not in me. Oh, there was Some--but not a real change...

the LIE of 'good and evil' and oh, to be GOOD,

but you see, no matter how GOOD you can be, that black thread, is Always, there, Always running through, and in the end, the black and gray show up more, than all the pinks, pastels, and greens and blues and yellows, in the world.

We can't 'weave' our own quilts, it just don't happen and come up with anything really beautiful. OH, it may Look beautiful, to the world, but inside, its toxic--deep down inside, it seeps out in our words, our thoughts, our deeds and our actions. Some of us, more than others...I'm one of the 'some of us'.

So I stand here before you all with this horrid black and gray quilt and I know, that I can' do nothing with it, that its no good for nothing, but to be burned.

But I can give it to Jesus and tell Him, please take it, I'm done, weaving this mess. And I see Red, lots and lots of Red, pouring, all over it and me.

You see, its NOT what WE do, that counts, its what HE does, what HE did, that counts and what God sees, and what God works and weaves and embroiders and stitches.

I have absolutely NO idea what God's Quilt for me will look like in the end...but I have learned this,

I think, its better to let HIM take over, do what He wants, and for me, to take my hands off of it, because I can't quilt myself or my life anyway. All I can do, is have Faith in Him, and Obey Him, and Trust Him,

and He'll do the rest. That is what that no I, but Christ who lives--there IS no other way.

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."~Ephesians 2:10

In solidarity, in Christ, In love,

Jane