911...This is God...What is Your Emergency?

I read a post recently by a young lady who alleges that the police in her town are harassing her because they were in the alley and watched her go into her house.  I don’t know all of the details of this situation, but I am smart enough to know that no matter how flat you make a pancake, it’s got two sides. (Thank you for the visual, Dr. Phil)  This post has created a bit of the stir with people claiming that police cannot follow you for more than three blocks, (everything that I have researched says that the police can drive anywhere in their jurisdiction, even if it’s behind your car), calling police vile names and in general, displaying an attitude of disrespect. Again, I don’t know the specifics of the situation and I really don’t care to.  I doubt that me knowing or her posting on Facebook about it will solve any problem with the police.  This did get me thinking though.

The same day that this was posted, I came home after dark.  As I drove down the alley, I saw two men walking.  They were probably just walking, but because my town has attracted people that may not respect human life or have mental illnesses that challenge their ability to make good decisions, I felt a sense of fear.  I put my keys between my fingers and quickly went from my garage to my house.  I was thinking that I would have loved to have had a cop following me and watching as I entered my house.

I think God gets treated like a cop sometimes. We don’t like the rules.  We think that we know better than He does.  We act like He’s a spoil sport just out to ruin our fun.  In reality, just like the laws are put into place to protect us from ourselves and others, the “rules” that God has put into place are for the same reason.  However, we go throughout our day profaning His name.  We are disrespectful to Him with our attitudes and actions.  We badmouth Him to those within earshot.  Until………

Life happens.  We find ourselves in situations that are painful.  We get to the end of our rope.  We experience the direct result of our own sinful choices.  That’s when all of a sudden, we dial up the 911 line to God.  I do believe that God can use times of crisis to draw us near to Him, but I’ve seen more times than I can count, when life gets a little better, we forget He exists and go back to the behaviors that got us in the mess in the first place.  When things get tough again, we blame God. 

We don’t know the whole picture.  The cops that were written about in that post may have known that there had been suspicious behavior in the neighborhood and were assuring the safety of the writer.  If something had happened to that person and the police weren’t there, there would be posts about their incompetence at not being there to serve and protect.  It’s a no-win situation for the police.  When God tells us in the Bible that something is wrong, we complain or just do it anyway. If it doesn’t “feel” like He’s right there or He doesn’t do exactly what we want when things get tough, we complain about that too. 

Maybe it’s time to grow up.  Maybe it’s time for us to realize that maybe, just maybe, we don’t know everything and that God isn’t a 911 dispatcher who we only contact in an emergency and then act like that’s a relationship with Him.  

Before and After

This morning, a single word spoken by my pastor caught my attention.  It’s not a word that I hear very often in a sermon, but I have heard it said about houses.  You see, in the past 5 years, I have had a significant amount of work done on my house.  It started with the kids removing the stucco, putting in new windows, changing the location of the front door, and putting on new siding.  The next project would be to gut the basement, take out the twirly stairs, build a staircase, remove a support column, insert an I-beam through the side of the house, reconfigure the bathroom,  and finally create an awesome living room and 2 bedrooms.  The next year brought changes to the kitchen.  This included gutting the area, removing the closet in the bedroom to make room for an island, installing new cabinets, leveling and then laying hardwood flooring, and finishing off the staircase with a beautiful banister.  I look at before and after pictures of these projects and am amazed at the talent of my children.  Watching them, especially the “foreman”, Jeramy, solve the problems that come with working on old houses and then creating something so awesome brings tears to my eyes.  That brings me back to the word that was spoken this morning.  The word was “renovate”.  As I thought about the word, I contemplated its meaning and how different it is from the word, “restore”.  I looked up the definition of these words and surmised the differences.  Restore means to put back into its original condition whereas renovate means taking something and making it better. 

I don’t see God as being in the business of restoring.  He doesn’t want us to be in our original condition.  Our original condition is sinful.  God is in the business of restoration.  He takes the person that we are and changes it to make us better than the original.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  We are made like new.  Just like Jeramy is able to take an old kitchen and basement and them into something beautiful and usable, God takes our old selves and makes us into something beautiful that he can use.  Don’t pray for God to restore you.  Pray that He will renovate you!!

More Than a Quilt

This shouldn’t come as a shock to you.  I love to quilt.  There’s just something about hunting for the perfect fabric, creating a palette of colors and patterns, designing, planning, cutting, and sewing.  There is an excitement in dropping it off at the quilters and starting a new project while waiting for that one to get done.  My quilter is amazing and we always have great chats about life, love, kids, struggles, and joys.  I take the quilt home and if I’m lucky, I’ll have the time to sew on the binding and start the process of hand sewing the finished edges.  Most of my quilts are queen-size so that’s between 1, 500 and 2,000 hand stitches to finish the project.  I admit that on more than one occasion, I have sat at the sewing machine long after my back has said to quit.  There have been times that I have stayed up way too late on a school night because I just had to finish the last few stitches. This is all great, but the quilts mean so much more.

I remember a Christmas when I was 7 or 8 and my grandma gave me a quilt that she had made.  It was pink, and soft, and contained fabric that was leftover from other things she had made.  As an adult, she made a quilt for my husband and me and subsequently, one for each of my children.  I don’t recall my mother quilting very much, but I do remember watching her sew and learning how to make clothes for my dolls.  It seems that fabric, needle and thread have always been a part of my life.  I started to quilt a little when I was college.  For a project in a Textiles class, I made a friendship quilt for my friend, Kelly.  We lost contact for many years after college, but reconnected on Facebook.  In one of our early conversations she told me that she still had the quilt and had told her children the story behind it. Most of my sewing during that time and for several years after was clothing or craft items.  I was able to fulfill a dream by designing and making my wedding dress.  Then the quilting bug hit.  I fell in love with the process and life has never been the same. 

It’s so much more than the process though.  Each quilt has a story behind it.  It may be just the fabric bringing back a memory of Dan happily going to fabric stores with me because he loved the way that my eyes would light up and then the pride that he had in me as I completed each one.  Even now, a few tears fall when I complete a quilt because I miss him so much.  Maybe it’s the quilt that I made while I was recovering from surgery.  I wasn’t supposed to go up and down stairs for 6 weeks so Dan moved my sewing machine to the living room.  I was able to complete about half of a block and then I needed a nap.  When I look at Christmas Star, I think of how much he cared for me.  Maybe it’s the flannel log cabin quilt that I made in secret for Dan and gave to him for Christmas one year.  Every stitch was worth it when I saw the joy on his face. Maybe it’s the Teal Chain made from fabric that I purchased knowing that part of the money would be used for cancer research.  Maybe it’s the jean quilt that also contains remnants of fabric that I used over the years when I made boxers and pajama pants for my kids and daughters-in-law.  Maybe it’s the True Lovers Knot quilt that I made to honor my parents for their 50^th anniversary.  Maybe it's the quilts that I have made for each of my children and grandchildren, each one with the pattern and fabric chosen specifically for them.

 I think I’m at about 50 quilts now.  I hope that someday, someone will look at the quilts and know that there is a story in every stitch.

With God's help....next time

For most of the summer, the street in front of my house has been under construction.  Not just a patch here and there, but sewer and water lines being replaced, sidewalks being replaced, etc.  This has resulted in some inconveniences like parking issues, water being shut off intermittently, noise, the house shaking due to large equipment being used-sometimes early in the morning, and a change in mail service.  The mail service has been the biggest issue for me.  Because the mail carrier can’t get to the front door, the city provided keyed boxes at the end of the street.  As with most entities in Williston right now, the USPS is experiencing high demand and limited help.  Williston is one of the very few areas that has an abundance of high paying jobs, so finding people to work in jobs that pay a “normal” salary is a real challenge.  This has meant that mail is delivered at inconsistent times.  I fully understand the challenges that are being faced and this isn’t meant as a complaint, just recognition of the situation.  Normally, this wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it has become more than a mere inconvenience.  There are some days that I find myself needing to go to my mailbox several times before finally finding that the mail has been delivered.  I would enjoy the walk except for the fact that I have to walk down my alley.  I try to present a positive attitude about the changes that are occurring in Williston, but the fact is that safety is an issue.  I live in an area that attracts more traffic than other areas, both vehicle and foot traffic.  With that, there is also the increased possibility of individuals with less than honorable motives frequenting the area.  Walking down my alley to get the mail can cause some fear at times.  Add to that the fact that outside of work, there isn’t anyone in my life that I talk to on a regular basis.  If something were to happen, I wouldn’t be missed until I didn’t show up for work.  As you can probably guess, this can result in a little anxiety.  As the days start to shorten, the probability of me finding myself going for the mail in the dark becomes more of a reality.

Yesterday, I heard the familiar sounds of large equipment working in front of the house.  In an effort to get an idea of when the work would be completed, I ventured outside to talk to one of the workers.  This wasn’t an angry confrontation.  I just wanted an idea of what to expect.  I ended up talking to a very nice lady who worked for Knife River.  She was using a shovel to clean up the area and get it ready for the sidewalk crew.  Her coworker was running the back hoe.  During our short conversation, I learned that she was from Oregon.  She came to Williston to avoid losing her house.  Her 18 year-old daughter is still in Oregon, “keeping the home fires burning”.  She has one grandchild with another on the way.  She is also a quilter.  Because she is living in work housing, she doesn’t have the luxury of enjoying her hobby and was disappointed that she hadn’t been able to make a quilt for the soon to be grandchild.  She misses her children and grandchildren terribly, but because she works 6 days a week, seeing them is not an option.  I went back into my house…the house that I own…the house that holds all of my stuff….and went to enjoy my hobby of quilting.  I found myself very grateful for what I have…even with the inconveniences that have come about.  I also thought about how much this woman and I have in common.  I miss my kids and grandkids terribly and hope for the times that busyness of life slows down enough for us to spend time together, by phone, Skype, or in person.  We both have a hobby that we really enjoy. We’re both women just doing the best that we can in the situations we find ourselves.  I wish now that I had asked her name and maybe offered an occasional respite from her work housing environment.  With God’s grace, I might have even offered to let her use my sewing room so she could, maybe just for a few moments, experience a little normalcy. (Those who know me, know that I don’t let ANYONE touch my sewing equipment =)  )  I think I really missed the boat on this one.  I could have been a real blessing to this woman but I let the opportunity slip away.  I will pray for her and hope that she will cross paths with people who can be a blessing to her.  Maybe next time, I’ll do better.