©Laurie Pace Graphics One Design 2022
Quilted Memories
Yesterday I was doing Saturday morning pick up and was carrying some books into my bedroom and I heard the word "USE". I looked at the stack of books I had collected to move and it was the Torah, the Chumash and two Bibles. When I read and study them, I usually compare passages and cross reference things.
I believe God was making a point of giving this word to me for many reasons that will reveal themselves over the course of time. The immediate thought was over those books first. I usually read in my Bible in the evenings and spend 45 minutes to an hour in study with them. Use it....your Bible or your Torah. Spend time during the day with the Lord.
Later in the day, I pulled out two large cloth containers with quilts in them. Some were family quilts and some were Ebay quilts I bought over the years. My mind was still on the USE word and I knew it was time to sift through all of these and share some with my Daughter in Law next door. There were quilts from an Aunt, my Mother, my grandmother, my dearest friend -that-is-a-sister, and among 15 quilts were a dozen tablecloths with hand made napkins, embroidery, cross stitch, and lots of colors.
Terry and I sifted through things first and I kept one table cloth from his family used on Thanksgiving. Many of them were over 130 inches and even my table with two leaves in it does not reach a need that long. Christmas, Spring flowers, and we came across another surprise I will share tomorrow. USE... what would we use. I have always had a thing about 'treasures' behind glass doors that children see and cannot touch. At this age I am pretty well done with glass doors and items we were not using. Yes, I would keep a handful of things that date back several centuries, but I did not want to keep things we would not use. My daughter in law took four quilts home... and this morning when I woke up at five, I curled up on the couch in our bedroom with a quilt surrounding me and spent time reading in the Chumash this morning. The word USE came up as in how God uses each of us, and has provided us with exactly what we need to help others with our gifts. Are we sharing those gifts?
Terry gets nervous when I start doing this. Why do we allow things to remain in storage or boxes and never use them? They need to be out of our lives. Use it or lose it.
What are you not using in your life? Why are we emotionally attached to so many things? Our possessions are part of our life and our memories. If we let go of something, do we lose the memory? What if someone else could benefit from something and it would become special to them and improve their life?
Terry has that feeling he might need it some day. A good example is when we moved to the lake 13 years ago, he made massive recordings of movies to watch at the lake because he was threatened by the thought of no have access to TV channels. Here we are 13 years later with 8-10 HUGE binders stuffed full of movies he recorded to watch. I might be swayed if he had kept a list in each binder of what was in it, but no way... He will not stop carting those binders around and rarely are they opened...
Terry also has a shoe box in the garage with all the 'notes' I wrote him in Jr high and high school. No one wants to read them. I was pretty insecure and jealous back then at age 11 and up. I will make them disappear one day. I read through them 30 years ago and tried to ditch them then... no way I want my children to find them or my adult grandchildren!!
What about the things we save for a special occasion? We have two champagne goblets from our wedding. We use to drink a toast on our anniversary but we have not done that in 20 years. We did make it through the Christmas boxes and narrowed that down. Sets of Dishes... I do not even want to count them. I did convince him to give his grandmother's china to one of his cousins daughters who would cherish them. We had them for 25 years and used them often. It was time for someone else to use them.
The last horizon of 'stuff' is everything he stuffed in our attic as we moved from across the street from 3100 sq ft to 1850 sq ft. I have no clue what is up there but it could bring some nightmares along if I thought about it. We cannot use anything in the attic.
I will share a borrowed thought. I read a blog two years ago about a woman who had china from her grandmother. She kept a coffee creamer and a serving dish. She uses both and always thinks of her grandmother. The rest of the dishes she donated. I may be doing that as I continue on the summer of USE.
When I hold up the quilt above, my memories of my mother's room with this beautiful quilt on her bed come to my mind. My grandmother made this for her. She and Dad only had a double bed back in the olden days... It was used for 10-12 years and even now 58 years later, is in beautiful condition. Every quilt has thousands of stitches holding pieces together or binding layers together. My grandmother's hands sewed love in every stitch she took. In our lives we stitch together our days with food, work, TV, computers and family communications. Some days are stitched loosely, others are tight and hurried. God wants us to use our time wisely... helping others as often as we can.
I did work on a painting today. The angel tears painting needed something and I am still working on it tonight. More to come as this week unfolds. May the Lord watch over you and me, continuing his unending love, his gift of mercy, and his forgiveness of our sins.
Follow the Spirit of the Paint... with Laurie Pace
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10
Laurie Pace - A Texas Artist
Laurie is an international artist, her paintings are collected in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, DuBai, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, St Thomas, Romania, Greece, Croatia, and Ecuador.
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© Graphics One Design 2021
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