Forgetting

Devotion for the Week...

Have you ever done something, walked away, and then had to come back to check to see if you did it immediately because you completely forgot? My husband is bad for this when it comes to locking a door.

I find myself doing it with the step counting on my watch. I'll check how many steps I have, flick back to the time screen and then a moment later I'm checking again because I can't remember what it said. I know I just checked, but I have no memory of the number even though I just read it!

When I found myself doing this last week, I thought of these verses: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do" (James 1:22-25).

Immediately forgets what he looks like...or immediately forgets what her watch says. Same thing, right? In either example, it's a matter of looking at something, walking away and forgetting what you saw. James compares that to someone who reads the Bible, but doesn't follow through on what they read by putting it into practice.

Reading the Bible does us no good if it never goes farther than that. We have to use what we read to change how we live our lives. Sometimes that change will be internal, in what we believe about God or about ourselves. For example, if a person has always believed that God is harsh and judgmental, just waiting for us to screw up so He can punish us, then reading 1 John 1:9 should change that perception. After all, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" doesn't sound harsh at all. But reading the truth about God doesn't change us unless we choose to believe it, and then choose to remind ourselves of it when the old beliefs try to reassert themselves.

Sometimes the changes will be external, revealing themselves in the way we act. "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" (Colossians 3:12-14). Compassion, kindess, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love. Reading about them, even nodding our heads in agreement as we read, isn't enough. We must act on what we have read and choose to incorporate those qualities into our everyday situations.

Don't forget, James tells us there are two parts to this equation - the reading intently and then the acting upon what we have read. Acting on what we have read is not possible if we never read the Bible, and reading the Bible alone is not enough. We must take what we've read and act on it.

WIPs This Week

It seems like I have a bunch of projects on the go right now, and none of them very close to a finish 😊
Here's a little round-up of what's moving on and off my kitchen table (since I don't have a sewing room, lol).

1. My Make Modern project.

This is a great scrap quilt I'm working on for issue 20 of Make Modern magazine (affiliate link). I'm quilting it now and did you see my little snafu with the quilting I chose? Oops! At least I like the square meander, so I'll still be happy with the quilting because you can be sure I wasn't going to rip out all that quilting.

2. My Hexie Rainbow.

This was one of my designs for the first 30 quilt designs challenge, with Rachel of Stitched in Color. I tried resisting starting it, especially since I already had my Scattered Stars epp quilt started, but the resistance didn't last long. I had been picking away at it slowly and I had the red double round finished along with some hexies basted in other colours. There's a challenge on IG now called 100 hexies 100 days and the idea is to baste at least 1 hexie each day for (you guessed it) 100 days. We're past the halfway point of the challenge already and most days I baste more than 1, so I've done 247 as part of the challenge. My little tin is getting full!

Along with basting the hexies, I have done a bit of sewing them together. I've started working on the orange double round now. I have all of the hexies basted for this round, so it's just a matter of taking the time to sew them together. I'm really loving how this looks so far!

3. Quilts for seniors/charity quilts

I hardly know what to call these now that the quilts for the residents have been delivered 😊 I have an official count of how many I need for the employees (10) and our town's first responders (31), so I'm working on getting those ready. There are 18 finished now, and 3 more that just need binding. I'll present the quilts to the employees once I have 10 feminine quilts finished, since all of the employees are women. Most of our first responders are men and I'm hoping to have enough masculine/neutral quilts that none of them end up with super-flowery quilts.

And since I know I only need 41 quilts, I've decided to pass on all of the tops I don't need for this project. Melinda (@mel_is_a_swapaholic on IG) is organizing a project to make quilts for those affected by hurricane Harvey, so I'll be sending all of the extra quilt tops to her. I still have a couple of tops to piece so I don't have a total count of how many I'll be sending her, but there will be 12+. I hope everyone who donated to this project agrees with this plan. It makes more sense to me to send the quilts where they are needed rather than me trying to figure out who I could give them to. Of course, I'll be sure to share pictures before I mail them out so you can admire how beautifully they all turned out 😊


So that's what's on the go for me. Plus there are a bunch of projects swirling around in my head, or partially finished and abandoned (for now), but still calling my name. Why aren't there more hours in the day? I can tell you one thing for sure - I'll never be bored!

What are you working on these days?

All Figured Out

Devotion for the Week...

A few weeks ago, Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl posted a video tutorial for a quilting design she calls Circuit Board quilting. I loved it immediately and thought it would be perfect for the quilt I'm working on now. So one day last week, while the kids I babysit coloured, I spent a little time drawing the design. I had no trouble drawing it, so I moved right on to quilting it once I got my quilt basted.

After I'd been quilting for about an hour, I wanted to check Yvonne's tutorial for something and when I looked at her quilting I realized mine looks nothing like her circuit board design! Mine is really nothing more than a square meander and lacks all of the long, echoed lines I love about Yvonne's design.

How did that happen, you ask? Well, it's pretty simple, really. I watched Yvonne's tutorial once a few weeks ago. Then, when I had time to try drawing the design, I thought I remembered what she did, so I just went with that rather than checking to make sure I had it right. But I didn't have it right at all!

Thankfully, I quite like the texture the square meander quilting is creating, so I'll stick with it, though I will add some of the long, echoed lines from the circuit board design. I will definitely keep Yvonne's design in mind for another quilt, and I'll check her tutorial before I start next time!

On Friday morning I made a kind of bread I've made many times before. I had the dough rising before the kids I babysit arrived so that all I had to do while they played was shape it, let it rise again and then bake it. When the timer went for me to take it out of the oven, I opened the oven door to find a very dark loaf of bread, not at all the beautiful golden colour I'm used to. Turns out, I turned the oven on 50° too hot because I didn't bother to check the recipe. I thought I remembered from all the other times I've made it...except I was remembering the temperature for another bread I make often. Thankfully the inside of the bread was still fine to eat, but we didn't eat the crust this time around!

Both times, I thought I had something all figured out when in fact I didn't. I could easily have gotten the facts right if I had taken the time to check, but I thought I knew what I was doing and didn't need to check. How wrong I was!

There are times we think we have life all figured out, only to find out later we couldn't have been more wrong. Times when we get upset because we think someone is saying or doing this because they're feeling that, only to find out later that wasn't the case at all. Have you ever had that happen? Have you ever made assumptions about someone else's motives and made judgments based on those assumptions, only to realize you were completely wrong?

James wrote, "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you" (James 1:5). We need wisdom for life. We need wisdom to know what we should be doing. We need wisdom to understand what other people are doing and why. We need wisdom to see how we can serve others. We need wisdom to know when we need to accept help from others.

We might think we have it all figured out, but there's no doubt in my mind that I sometimes fall into the category of those who lack wisdom. But look at what James tells us: if we ask God for wisdom, He gives it generously. Not just a little, not just barely enough to get us through, but generously. Abundantly. And He gives us His wisdom without finding fault with us. He doesn't scold us for not already having all the wisdom we need. He doesn't tell us we should know better. He just gives it to us generously.

But first we have to ask. We have to acknowledge that we don't, in fact, have life all figured out. Then, once we ask, He gives us the wisdom we need.