Gift Giving

Devotion for the week...

It's that time of year again...you're probably either braving the mall, spending a lot of time online shopping, or sewing frantically. Or maybe you're doing all three! While my husband does a lot of our Christmas shopping (yes, I do appreciate it!), over the past few days, I have been shopping online for things for him, thinking about what to get my parents, and working on a mini quilt for my grandmother.

In the midst of all that, Matthew 7:11 popped into my head: "So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him." For a little context, this is part of the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus was talking about prayer. The full paragraph says, "You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him" (vv. 9-11).

I love that Jesus compared God to a parent giving gifts to their kids!

As Paul has been shopping online for stocking stuffers for our boys, he keeps showing me things he has found. Even though the boys are now 21, 19, and 15, it's still a joy for him to find things he thinks they will like, whether it's something he thinks they'll use or something silly that will make us all laugh on Christmas morning. And now, thanks to Jesus' comparison, I can't help but picture God thinking joyfully of the little gifts He will give us.

Think about how many blessings have been bestowed on us, even though we haven't asked for those specific things, because He knows we will need them or enjoy them. Isn't it beautiful to think that God finds joy in giving us those things?

Then, of course, there are the gifts He gives us in response to our prayers. Maybe it's a big thing, like a new job or healing from an illness. Maybe it's a little thing, like a child finally sleeping through the night, or an encouraging phone call when you're feeling down. Regardless of what we ask for, Jesus assures us that our Father is paying attention, and that He will give us good gifts in response to our prayers. In fact, He's better at choosing gifts for His children than any human parent ever could be.

How could it be otherwise, when "whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father" (James 1:17). Everything good in our lives is a gift from God, whether it's something we asked for or not.

My First Quilt with Cheryl Brickey

Today it's my pleasure to bring you another My First Quilt interview. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I do! This month Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs is telling us all about the first quilt she made. Cheryl is a pattern designer who runs a popular mystery quilt along each year. While I've never done one of Cheryl's mystery QALs, I always love the quilts when they're revealed! Her Malted Mystery QAL is going on now, so be sure to check that out.

You can connect with Cheryl on her blog, visit her shop, and follow her on IG and FB.

And now, here is Cheryl's first quilt! Isn't it lovely?

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

I made my first quilt in 2011.  I had a toddler and infant at the time and was stuck in the endless diaper, feeding, cleaning loop.  I read a quote that said "A woman should do something everyday that can't be undone".  

My daughter was moving from a crib into a toddler bed so I decided that she needed a quilt.  I do not have any quilters in my family, but have always admired quilts so I decided to try making one.

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

The quilt pattern (Stepping Star by Sweet Jane, no longer available) called for a jelly roll, but instead of using that I used a variety of fat quarters I found at JoAnn's along with some yardage I found on clearance.  It was a simple pattern using only squares and rectangles.  I quilted it on my mother's 1980's Singer in a stipple pattern.

Who taught you to make the quilt?

I dove head first trying to learn everything about quilting that I could.  I spent hours on blogs and YouTube learning quilting techniques.  My husband bought me some basic quilting supplies including a cutting mat, ruler, and rotary cutter.  After I had made a few quilts, I joined a quilt guild and was able to take some in person quilting classes.

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

I do not normally use too much brown in my quilts, but I really like the brown and teal combination.

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I bought fabric for my next quilt before my first was even finished :)  I was hooked.

Where is the quilt now?

This quilt still has a rotation on my couch and is super soft after all of the years of washing. It has a few popped seams but I still love it.

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

I would tell myself to practice my 1/4" seam allowance a little more before sewing the blocks.  Because there was a different number of seams in the horizontal versus vertical direction in the blocks, my blocks turned out more rectangular than square.  This proved to make sewing the quilt top together more challenging as the blocks were each rotated 90 degrees from their neighbor.

Anything else you want to share about your first quilt?

In addition to cutting the fabric from fat quarters instead of jelly rolls, I also added another row of blocks to the backing.  I had to rework the cutting, yardage, and piecing and I figured out that I loved doing quilt math which put me on the path to becoming a quilt pattern designer.

Thanks for sharing your first quilt with us, Cheryl! I love it, and I love that adjusting the pattern also started you on the path to designing your own patterns.

No Matter How Big

Devotion for the week...

Sometime early last week, I thought of this devotion I wrote in 2016, and all week I couldn't get it out of my mind. I'm sharing it again today in case you need to hear this message.

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What is your first inclination when you screw up big time when no one you know is around? Do you immediately rush to tell people, or are you secretly grateful no one saw and vow to keep it to yourself?

If you're like most people, you tend to keep those things quiet, unless it's one of those 'so stupid it's funny' stories that you're able to laugh about later. We don't really like letting others know how many mistakes we make, do we?

Before He was arrested, Jesus told His disciples, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me," (Matthew 26:31) meaning that they would all scatter and abandon Him. 

But "Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will” (v. 33). Oh, the confidence! It's easy to be confident you'll stick around through the hard times when everything looks perfect, isn't it?

But Jesus knew the truth. "Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times" (v. 34). How that must have stung Peter, hearing that Jesus didn't believe Peter's declaration.

So then "Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you" (v. 35).

Well, that's not what happened, is it? Jesus did get arrested and all the disciples scattered, Peter included. When Jesus was taken away, though, Peter followed.

"Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said.

But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Then he went out to the gateway, where another servant girl saw him and said to the people there, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

He denied it again, with an oath: “I don’t know the man!”

After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.”

Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”
Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly" (vv. 69-75).

Talk about screwing up big time! Where hours before Peter had been sure he'd be willing to die with Jesus, when the threat came, he found himself denying that he even knew Jesus. Once he realized what he had done, of course Peter wept bitterly. Wouldn't you have?

I once heard a preacher ask, "How do we know Peter denied Jesus?" When you stop to think about it, the only possible way we know this story is because Peter must have told the others what happened. I doubt Peter ever forgot the shame he felt after denying Jesus, but I think he probably told the story hundreds of times in his life. Not because he was proud of himself, or liked telling about his worst mistake, but because once he shared that story, he could then tell the rest of the story.

The first people to learn of the resurrection were some women who went to the tomb to prepare Jesus' body for burial. They arrived at the tomb to find Jesus' body gone and an angel sitting outside the tomb. The angel said to them, "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you" (Mark 16:6,7). Tell his disciples and Peter! In other words, don't leave Peter out. Make sure he knows what is happening. Give him hope.

Peter screwed up big time, but that just meant Jesus could show him the depth of His grace. Paul wrote in Romans 5:20-21, "where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." The bigger the sin, the bigger the grace that covers it...and the sin can never be so big that there isn't sufficient grace to cover it. Just ask Peter.

I picture Peter all through his life, talking with people who think their sins are too much for God, that God would never want them because they've screwed up their lives too much. I see Peter smiling as he shakes his head. "You think you've screwed up?" he says to them. "Just listen to what I did, and Jesus forgave me. If His grace is big enough for me, it's big enough for you."

The truth is, there are people today who think they've screwed up their lives too much for God to ever forgive them. Maybe you're one of them. But no matter how big your sins, or how many, God's grace is always big enough to cover them. 

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Whoever believes...not only those people who have tiny sins, or those people who hardly ever sin...whoever believes! That means anyone and everyone who believes. Even if your sins are as big as Peter's.