Branches

Devotion for the Week...

In our backyard, just outside my sewing room window, there's a big birch tree. We've had a lot of wind the past few weeks and now there's a scattering of branches broken off the tree stuck in the snow all around that side of the yard. In a few months, we'll gather all the broken branches and twigs to burn in our firepit as part of the regular spring cleanup.

Looking out the window at those branches in the snow last week made me think of Jesus telling His disciples "a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father" (John 15: 4-8).

Those birch branches thrown around my yard won't produce leaves when spring comes this year because they no longer have a connection to the sap running through the tree. Without that sap, they can't do anything.

Likewise, we can't produce spiritual fruit unless we stay connected to Jesus. Without that connection to Him, we can't do anything good. We stay connected through prayer, reading our Bibles, Christian music, meditating on His word, going to church...anything that helps us stay open and receptive to God. What I find interesting is that this isn't a one-and-done kind of thing. Remaining in Him implies continually choosing to stay connected. It's not something with a finish line or an end date, it's a lifestyle of choosing Jesus.

The fruit He refers to is the fruit of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23). When we have an ongoing connection to Him, this fruit grows in our lives as we allow the Spirit to make us more like Jesus. When these things are evident in our lives, it brings glory to God.

Wouldn't you rather be a branch connected to the tree, drawing sap and producing fruit that brings glory to God than a broken branch on the ground, drying up and useless? I know I would!

Take a Break [Lessons From Quilting]

I've learned a lot of things in the more than two decades I've been quilting. I've learned about ¼" seams, partial seams, Y seams and curved seams. I can do applique, embroidery and paper piecing. I can make a quilt entirely by hand. I can quilt by hand or by machine, though these days I definitely prefer quilting by machine.

Along the way, I've also learned a lot of things about life and about myself, which have inspired an occasional series I'm calling Lessons From Quilting 😊 

For this first instalment of the Lessons from Quilting series, we're going to consider what to do when things aren't going right. 

It happens to all of us at some point. Whether it's points that just *won't* match up or we've made the same mistake three times in a row, sometimes quilting is more frustrating than fun. When that happens, it's a good idea to put it down and walk away for a while. 

The pictures in this post are my Pinwheel Garden quilt. The pattern is available in my shop!

When I'm repeating mistakes, I'm just getting more and more frustrated and annoyed, which makes it less likely I can think clearly. If I'm not thinking clearly, I can't see the problem properly, so I won't figure out the solution. Of course, this isn't limited to quilting! Over the years, I've had to suggest this same thing to Nathan many times when he was getting frustrated with homework or an art project. Stepping away for a while has always helped us both.

Walking away from whatever we're struggling with gives us a chance to calm down and then come back to it later with more patience and problem-solving ability. It's amazing what a difference that break can make! My husband even finds this to be true with his daily crossword puzzle. After a couple of hours away from it, he's often surprised by how easily he figures out answers that had eluded him earlier.

Unfortunately, when we're stuck in the frustration it can be really hard to make ourselves walk away. We can be so determined to fix the problem that we don't want to give up, even for a little while. But when we do convince ourselves to take that break, coming back to the problem refreshed often means finding the solution faster than if we had forced ourselves to power through the frustration.

Does taking a break work for you, too? Do you find it hard to step away when your frustration level is rising? I'd love to know!

Working for Peace

Devotion for the Week...

I'm constantly amazed by how familiar verses, that I've read or heard dozens of times, can one day grab my attention in a totally new way. That happened this past week with Matthew 5:9, which is part of The Beatitudes: "God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God." In particular, it was the word peace that caught my attention and my first thought went to those who call for peace in the midst of protests over the deaths of Black people at the hands of police.

In those situations, when say they want peace, what they really want is for the protestors to go home and stop protesting. They want the status quo, for things to stay the way they are and have always been. That's because they (as white people, mainly) have peace under the status quo. But Jesus calls us to work for peace, spreading peace to others, not just maintaining peace for those who already have it.

The Greek word translated as 'work for peace' in the NLT is also translated as 'peacemaker' in other versions and has its root in the word eirene. According to the NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon, eirene means "a state of national tranquility; peace between individuals; security, safety, prosperity, felicity." So the children of God should be working to increase national tranquility, to increase the peace between people and to increase the security, safety, prosperity and felicity of others.

In thinking about the racial application of eirene, working to increase the security, safety, prosperity and felicity of all BIPOC would also increase the peace between people and national tranquility (no matter which nation you live in). If we all embraced the idea of creating safety and prosperity for everyone, there would be less division between groups of people.

Interestingly, working for peace doesn't mean avoiding conflict or sitting on the sidelines and wishing everyone could just get along. Instead, it means stepping directly into the conflict, putting ourselves between the two parties in opposition, and working to bring them together. It means taking an active role in making the situation better.

As someone who hates conflict of any kind, this call to work for peace makes me uncomfortable. I am not usually the one to step into the midst of a conflict and try to find a resolution. On top of that, I have trouble seeing how I can make a difference to such a complex problem. Maybe you can relate to one or both of those feelings.

Our feelings aside, though, this verse tells us plainly that God values the efforts of those who work for peace. That makes me wonder, what could peacemaking look like in our lives?