This is my sweet girl learning how to quilt. She is really good at it – or so Peggy says. Peggy is our next-door neighbor who has taken Emily under her wing, teaching her the fine art of quilting. If you are a homeschool mamma, you need to find some people like Peggy for your kiddos to learn from. They are life-changing and in our society they are becoming harder to find.
This lady is 85 years young and has a huge heart. She experienced the great depression along with her family which resulted in losing their apple farm in Washington State. Peggy was living in Seattle with her sister when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She went on in life to raise four wonderful children. After finishing her working life at Raytheon, she traveled through all 49 continental United States for 12 years in an RV with her hubby. Phew – and that’s not even half of it. She is one amazing lady and we are blessed she lives next door.
When Em and I go down to sew for a morning, she always has a story to share. Like the story about her working at 14 yrs old in a garment factory during the war cutting out skirts by the 100 for the machines to sew up. Peggy would wake up in Seattle to a view of a blimp tethered in a nearby park that was used to monitor enemy threats on the West Coast. In her own words, she is still, “Disgustingly strong!” I often find her doing things and suggest she stop and let me help, and all I get is, “Don’t be silly I’m fine.”
One morning last year while glancing out of my front window, I caught her standing on the roof of her house. Turns out she had decided to change out a few roofing tiles- by herself!! Peggy certainly has LIVED. I am so glad we are neighbors.
Back to the quilting. Peggy’s garage could be mistaken for a fabric store – she even has a 15ft quilting machine. She graciously let Em sift through to find some fabric for her quilt. When it came down to planning and cutting the fabric she had picked, guess what? We had just enough of all the colors she had picked, to within an inch!
Peggy went on to tell us, that she had purchased the main pink fabric about 20 years ago, because it was so very lovely, but had never used it. She declared God must have had her buy it for my sweet girl (before she was even born) and that he must have known which fabric she would pick as it all worked out so perfectly! What an awesome perspective.
This is so true for all aspects of our lives. Although we have many choices, God knows what we will pick and works it together for His good in our lives. Some things or events don’t seem so good in the moment, but then we cannot see the whole quilt. God will work out the details to be a masterpiece of His making in the end. There have been times recently when the chaos has been incredibly overwhelming or at best seemed downright wrong But in eternity I believe God will show me how it all worked together for good and His glory. We have a great creator and I trust He knows what he is doing.
Peggy was confidently cutting like crazy with this sharp wheelie thing and all the while in my mind I am freaking out she will make a mistake. She has made a gazillion quilts and of course it all cut out perfectly. Like our all-knowing God, she could see the cuts that she needed to made to create a beautiful quilt.
God has each of us in the palm of His very capable hands, He knows the pattern and the end He has in mind. The hard part for us is NOT freaking out while God is making those cuts and fitting it all together. God is still working on this part of my life! If we believe, there is rest and my is job is to trust and believe.
“There remaineth therefore a rest unto the people of God..Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest…..” Heb 4:9, 11a
“being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” Phil 1:6
In these verses, I think the labor or the work is the faith actively believing in the middle of it all. Today I choose to rest in an all-loving, all-wise, all-powerful, and caring God to finish this work He began and in the end He will receive all the glory.
Love and blessings, Kay
