Crowd Noise

 Devotion for the Week...

Have you ever been in a group of people where everyone is talking, sharing their ideas or telling their stories and you have something to say but it's impossible to get a word in edgewise? It's so frustrating, isn't it? Especially if you're more prone to being quiet and letting others speak rather than pushing yourself to the forefront. It's hard to feel like your voice and your contribution matter when everyone is always speaking over you.

Now, just think about how many people are praying at any given moment. It's a mind-boggling number, right? And yet God can hear us. All at the same time. We're never told to wait in line, to take turns, to worry about whether or not someone else is already talking to Him.

Here are a few verses to consider:

"In those days when you pray, I will listen" (Jeremiah 29:12)

"Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

"And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for" (1 John 5:14-15)

"Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere" (Ephesians 6:18).

Major League Baseball had crowd noise piped in during their games this year, to make up for the fact that there were no actual fans there. When you read the phrase 'crowd noise,' you can imagine the sound, can't you? It's that constant buzz created by the chatter of thousands of people. Now imagine the crowd noise created by the millions of people being persistent in their prayers right now as you read this. Imagine trying to get a word in edgewise in that conversation!

I don't understand how it's possible, but God doesn't hear crowd noise. He can be fully present in every conversation at all times or He would have told us to use some kind of schedule or mediator so we could be sure He was paying attention when we were talking to Him. Instead, He tells us to pray at all times and on every occasion and He assures us that He hears us whenever we pray. 

Background quilt is Windows

I find it reassuring to know our prayers aren't just crowd noise to God!

Flower Path Pattern Release

I'm always excited when it's pattern release day, but this one is doubly exciting 😊 Flower Path is my 10th pattern release for 2020, which means I have met my biggest goal for the year! Happy dance, happy dance!

Flower Path was originally published in Make Modern last year and the pattern is now expanded to include a 48" square baby quilt size along with the 60" x 68" size shown here.

I love playing with orange peel shapes. They're so bold, especially in bright colours like this red and yellow, but they're also really simple to cut out and to stitch around. That makes them great if you're not quite comfortable with machine applique yet. And if you are comfortable, they make for a quick sew 😊

I made my Flower Path quilt using Foundations fabrics from Island Batik. The red and yellow are incredibly vibrant against the mottled dark blue, which is called Storm and is in my top 3 favourite Island Batik fabrics, for sure.

All of the piecing and quilting is done with Aurifil 50 wt thread, of course, and there's Warm and Natural batting inside. Together they make for a soft and cozy quilt. When Zach had soccer games on a chilly Saturday morning last month, this was one of the quilts we took to wrap up in. A friend said it was too pretty to be out at the soccer field and I just laughed. They can all go in the washer, I told her 😊 I love using my quilts whenever we can!

To celebrate the pattern release, Flower Path will be available at its introductory price now through November 28th. Printed patterns are a pre order and will ship once they arrive from the printer. PDF patterns are available for download immediately after purchase, of course.

Buy Flower Path - PDF

PRE ORDER Flower Path - printed (free shipping)

Thank you for your support of my pattern business this year  - for buying patterns, writing reviews in my Etsy shop, commenting here or on social media posts and for pinning images to help spread the word to other quilters who don't know about Devoted Quilter patterns yet. I appreciate you so much!

I'll be linking to NTT, TGIFF, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Finished (or not) Friday and Beauties Pageant. 

Discounted

 Devotion for the Week...

There have been so many thought provoking and moving social media posts and graphics since Kamala Harris became the VP-elect of the US. One, which I can't find now, had thumbnail headshots of all the former VPs, with a full body picture of Harris on the right side. Three of the former VPs were circled in different colours and the caption at the bottom said "Until the red circle, she would have been a slave girl. Until the blue circle, she couldn't vote. Until the green circle, she would have attended a segregated school." For all of those years, she would have been discounted immediately, and not only from discussions of who could be vice president.

Discount, in this sense, means "regard (a possibility, fact, or person) as being unworthy of consideration because it lacks credibility," according to Oxford Languages. It's dismissing a person without giving any thought to their abilities or intelligence, because obviously there can't be any of either because they are ____. You can fill in the blank with any number of possibilities that people use as an excuse to dismiss others, whether it's their skin colour, their gender, their age or their education.

Discounting people is nothing new. I stumbled upon an example of it in the Bible this past week. In 1 Samuel 16 we read, "Now the Lord said to Samuel, “You have mourned long enough for Saul. I have rejected him as king of Israel, so fill your flask with olive oil and go to Bethlehem. Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king" (v. 1). Samuel did as God commanded and had Jesse bring his sons to him, but when Samuel considered each of Jesse's boys, God said he was not the one He had chosen (vv. 6-10). Can you imagine Samuel's confusion as he looks at Jesse's sons standing in front of him, all of whom God has rejected...after God told him specifically that He had chosen one of Jesse's sons?

Then Samuel turns to Jesse. I picture Samuel with his brows drawn together and his head cocked to the side, his face the very picture of "I don't understand what's going on here, but..." as he said, "Are these all the sons you have?" (v. 11).

To which Jesse replied, "There is still the youngest...But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats" (v. 11). Samuel told him to send for David and when he arrived, God said, "This is the one; anoint him" (v. 12).

Was it his age that made Jesse discount David? Or was it not worth the bother to bring him home from where he was watching the sheep? We don't know, but for whatever reason, Jesse didn't even consider that David might have been the son God had chosen to be king.

Have you ever been discounted by someone? Maybe a teacher or a coach or even a parent didn't consider you worthy of some job or task. Or maybe someone you wanted to be friends with dismissed you without even getting to know you.

Of course, it's not only other people who discount us. Sometimes we discount ourselves, thinking, "I could never do that," whatever that might be. 

What we can learn from the story of David's anointing to be king is that God doesn't discount us. He knows what we are capable of, even when others don't think we're capable of anything. He knows who we can be, even when we're convinced we'll never be anything more than we are right now. When Jesse presented his first son, God told Samuel, "Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (v. 7). God doesn't worry about whether people think we're too young, or that a woman can't do the job or that a person of colour can't possibly be qualified. He knows that none of that outward stuff matters at all.

Background quilt is Blowing in the Wind

God sees our possibilities and counts us in for all the things we could do because of who He made us to be.