PATCHWORK

Sometimes we don't know what God is up to till it's all over.

Take Joseph, for example. He received a promise, in the form of a dream: that he would become great among his family members.

Then what happened? Within a few years, his kingly garments were in pieces on one side of the river, while he was on the other, slaving for Potiphar. He was faithful anyway... and as a reward for his integrity, he was accused of rape and thrown into jail.

His life lay in pieces all over the Sahara desert. He must have wondered what on earth God was up to... or if He was just out for a seventh coffee break and would be back in a few millennia.

A Little Story...

For the past month or so, I've felt like my life is in pieces. Not to be melodramatic... I just didn't get the job I wanted. I had an offer that promised to be exciting and meaningful, and it fell through, so I'm stuck in North Philly trying to persuade acting-out kids to eat their vegetables. Not that I have gripes with the site or the people, but I thought I knew what God was up to, until He switched gears on me.

On top of all that, I was slapped with a huge car repair bill as well as a week unemployed between assignments to twiddle my thumbs. I decided to make the best of it and volunteer my free time at a warehouse that sends aid to countries in crisis.

Which was where I found out about the quilts. Apparently, they don't get many blankets donated, but they do get loads of sheets and scrap fabric... which is where the Mennonite women come in, cutting and sewing beautiful patchwork quilts to send over to Haiti. I love to sew, and immediately I saw a great project that I could take home with me.

Except that I don't have quilting supplies, or even a sewing machine, let alone money to get one. "Well," I said, "Let me take a quilt kit home, and God will provide the sewing machine." I strongly believed that He would. But just for good measure, I announced my plans to the youth group, and asked them to pray for a sewing machine to appear.

"Oh, dear Jesus," my friend Stan prayed, "You have lots of sewing machines lying around... can't You please give her one?" I smiled.

The next day I wandered into Goodwill and asked whereabouts I should look if they had a sewing machine. The lady pointed behind me. I turned around and gasped, as an old Singer had just appeared where there had been nothing five minutes ago.

I happily bought it for twenty dollars, and returned home to find it was missing the pedal and power cord, as well as a few miscellaneous parts.

Now I had a worse problem. I had a sewing machine that was in pieces, and the likelihood of finding those pieces at the next Goodwill were slim to none. Machine pedals vary by brand and model, so a Kenmore pedal, for example, won't plug into the socket of a Singer machine. I looked online, but the cost of buying the parts that I needed from some retailer in Canada was more than the cost of a new machine. And there was no guarantee I'd even get the right ones.

Dismayed, I put the machine away. But the desire lingered, I wanted to sew these quilts. It seemed sinful to spend my free time all on myself. I put an ad on Freecycle, and donations of scrap fabric began to pour in. One lady gave me 8 boxes of fabric and unfinished quilts--enough for my whole youth group to work on if they desired.

A few nights ago, I went through my boxes of art supplies, hoping to gather at least the stuff I needed to start cutting and laying fabric. I dug to the bottom of one box and gasped in disbelief.

There in the bottom of the box was a Singer sewing machine pedal. I tried it in the machine three times before acknowledging that it did indeed fit. I couldn't believe it. Where had it come from, and what was it doing in a box of craft knickknacks under my bed?

Along with the pedal was a box of spare parts. They had both come from my grandmother's sewing machine, which bit the dust ten years ago. Both had survived three moves, including one in which I donated my sewing machine and all its accessories to a friend. Why had I kept that pedal? Only God knew the reason, until it was time.

God could have sent me a new sewing machine, or even persuaded me to keep the old one. Yet He chose to send me one missing pieces, and have those pieces mysteriously turn up at my house!

Well, and so could we, send new blankets to Haiti. But how much more precious it is to receive a handmade one, sewn in pieces that together compose a beautiful, unique pattern!

In the same way, I believe God often gives us the story of our lives in little pieces. He knows where all those pieces are and will unite them at just the right time for His own glory.