Worth the Price

I bought a new pair of sandals last week, which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. I couldn't find a pair I liked though, mostly because I wanted sandals that looked sturdy enough for all the walking I do, but all the ones I found in stores like Wal-Mart and Payless looked much too flimsy. So I kept putting it off, schlepping around in my old pair even though they were almost falling apart. I wasn't about to spend money on a new pair that wouldn't last, even if they didn't cost much.

Then last week we went into a new store. One where the shoes are anything but cheap, but they're sturdy looking and oh, so comfortable. I found several pairs of shoes I'd have been happy to buy, which is rare for me. I've always hated buying shoes because I'd much rather spend the money on fabric or books. But this store had shoes that are exactly what I've been looking for, meaning that they don't look like they're going to disintegrate after I wear them for a week. I didn't mind paying the higher price because I'm pretty sure these sandals are going to last me a few summers. I think the sandals are worth the price I paid.

Did you know that a price was paid for us? The Bible says, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19,20).  These verses are part of a passage speaking against sexual immorality, but the fact remains that we were bought at a price. Paul repeats it in chapter 7 when he says, "You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings (1 Corinthians 7:23).

Obviously God did not pay money for us, so what price does Paul mean? One very well-known verse provides the answer: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). God's only Son, Jesus, is the price that was paid for us. Jesus, who is God, left Heaven and became a human baby who had to be tended and cared for by a human mother. He grew to be a man and was hated so intensely by the religious leaders that they incited a crowd to demand his death. And what a death he endured - our word excruciating  comes from the Latin word meaning to crucify, calling to mind 'a pain like the pain of crucifixion'.

Yet, "for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrew 12:2). What joy is it that was set before Him? Our salvation, our right to eternal life because of our faith in Him who paid the price for our sins. Jesus endured the terrible agony of the cross because it was the price required to pay for our sins. Think about what a high price that was. Think not only about the physical pain, but also the emotional pain of being hated, mocked, misunderstood and abandoned even by friends. Think about the spiritual pain that made Him cry "out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)" (Matthew 27:46). Try to imagine all of that bombarding Him at one time.

Jesus endured all of it because He thinks we are worth the price He paid.

Let this thought settle into your heart this week: whether or not you feel worthy, Jesus thinks you are worth the price He paid.

A New Address

Devotion for the Week...

Have you moved often? I lived in the same house from the age of 5 until I left for university. Then, after graduating and getting married, we moved to Igloolik, Nunavut for 6 years, then here to Newfoundland. After two years here we bought a house up the road from our apartment and that has been the extent of my moving around. My husband, on the other hand, grew up as a pastor's kid, which meant they moved every couple of years.

Moving to a new town means changing some of your routines. You have to figure out where the grocery store is and where you'll pick up your mail. Where can you go for a walk? Is there a beach nearby? Where will you go to church and how will you meet new friends? Our move from the apartment to the house covered a distance of less than half a kilometer, so it didn't change any of those things, but it did change the route for most of our walks and the new backyard offered more freedom to garden and play.

Spiritually speaking, those of us who believe in Jesus have all moved, and not only from one building to another, or one province or state to another. The moment we accept Jesus' offer of eternal life through faith in Him, we make an inter-kingdom move. "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13,14). 

Though our physical bodies stay in the same place, shopping in the same stores and following the same route to get to work, our spiritual selves are somewhere completely new and this requires changing some routines. "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:5-10). 

When we move our routines change out of necessity. Even if I still wanted to check my mail at the post office in Igloolik, I can't. I'm in a different province and my mail isn't sent to Igloolik anymore. Unfortunately, the routines that need to change because of our spiritual move don't become impossible. Though things like lying, gossiping, envying and greed have no place in this new kingdom, it is still possible that believers will slip back into those habits. It requires a constant vigilance, and a constant reliance on God, to break those old habits. 

Thankfully, God is more than willing to help us break the old routines and to form new routines. How will we know when the new routines are forming? "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality; impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like" (Galatians 5:19-21). Equally obvious, "the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law"(Galatians 5:22, 23). 

Is there idolatry in your life, something that has a higher place in your heart than God has? Is there hatred or selfish ambition? That would be evidence that you are still clinging to the habits and routines of the old kingdom. Is your life marked by love, joy, patience and self-control? That would be evidence that your habits and routines are in sync with the new kingdom. 

So, if you're being honest with yourself, which kingdom has your allegiance, according to your actions?

Scrappy Log Cabin - Finished!!

Finally I can share pictures of my Scrappy Log Cabin quilt! I finished it back in May, but this quilt is huge and I don't have anywhere to take pictures of something so big easily. No quilt-hanging-on-the-backyard-clothesline shot for me.

So, we took it to a local park for a special photo shoot.

That rather odd looking structure behind the quilt is a reproduction of a community bread oven from the time of the early French settlers in this area.

There are still lots of icebergs around, as you can see in the background.

All the fabrics in the quilt top are scraps, except for the sashing/borders and the yellow in the block centers and sashing cornerstones. Amazingly, my 1 1/2" strip container is still just as full as when I started piecing this. Do the scraps breed when we're not looking?

It took me a long time to quilt this, mostly because I kept starting (and finishing) other projects instead of working steadily on this one. It actually took about 16 months to finish just the quilting. The whole reason I started making this quilt, way back when, was to give myself a large project on which I could practice my free-motion quilting skills and it worked!

I started by stitching in the ditch around all the blocks and then I made the first attempt at a block. I hated it! There's not a line in there that's even close to straight, and I wasn't going for the organic look. I wasn't about to rip out all those stitches, but there was no way I was committing to doing 55 more blocks with a design that I hated.

Eventually I settled on spirals in all the blocks, except in each vertical row there would be one block with a different design. That way this first block wouldn't be the only odd one out and I could play around with a few other designs along the way. Whew, crisis averted! Some of these pictures are from the back of the quilt so the quilting shows up better.

Here are my favourites of the different designs.

Wavy cross-hatch

Pebbles

As for the spirals, did they ever improve between the first blocks and the last ones!

One of the earliest spiral blocks

One of the last spiral blocks.

Don't you just love when you can see that your quilting has improved?

I decided the sashing strips would be a great place to work on my feathers. After all, with something like 127 sashing strips, I was sure to figure out how to stitch them by the time I finished, right?

One of the first sashing feathers

One of the last sashing feathers

 I also did feathers in the border.

Because this quilt is so big, it's hard to get a good shot of the back that shows all the detail of the quilting.

 I used a Gutermann 100% cotton variegated thread for the quilting, but I won't be buying it again. It produced a crazy amount of lint and I had problems with breakage at times. I do love how it blends in with the mottled sashing/border fabric though.

When the quilting was finally finished, I dug out my 2 1/2" strips and pieced a scrappy binding. Then I did the binding entirely by machine, figuring that a practice quilt seemed an appropriate place to practice that new skill too. As a bonus, machine binding is lots faster than hand binding.

This quilt is now covering the bed in our spare room, making me happy each time I see it.

I'll be celebrating by linking up everywhere I can think of! Check out my links page.