Moving Day

Over the past few weeks I have been sorting, purging and packing up my life into nice, neat cardboard boxes. And there have been a few thoughts that have been rolling around in my head...

1.) it has been somewhat therapeutic! I have had time to go through things, take a walk or two down memory lane and weed out some of the things that are no longer needed.

2.) it has been somewhat adventurous! Both in discovering possessions long thought lost as I empty cupboards and repack old crushed boxes into new ones. While at the same time wondering when and where I will once again see my precious things as I settle into my next chapter of life.

3.) it has also been somewhat depressing! Packing up your "life" and watching it get loaded onto a big orange truck. All your precious belongings carefully wrapped in paper and protected by a cardboard shell.

But, I think really the most depressing thing is not having anywhere to move to...again! Every time I have made a big move in the last 10 years (and it has been many moves) I have not had a place to move to, my things have just gone to storage and I have stayed with my parents until I did have someplace to go. (Don't get me wrong I am grateful for the place to land, recover, and launch...my mom and dad are the best!) But, once just ONCE I would like to say to the movers when they come to collect my "life" that I am moving someplace...

But, here I sit on moving day once again...and as I write this all of my possessions are tightly boxed up and the movers are loading them into the big orange truck! Moving has become somewhat of a habit for me...not one by choice but by circumstance...and I still don't like it!

Wildflowers

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers

—most of which are never even seen—

don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax,

to not be so preoccupied with getting,

so you can respond to God's giving.

People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things,

but you know both God and how he works.

Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.

Don't worry about missing out.

You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

(Matthew 6:30-33 MSG)

Just something to think about...why is it that we worry so much? Have such anxiety over the little things in life? Maybe we should take Jesus' words to heart...ponder the wildflowers that bloom for no human audience at all.

Unfinished Projects

There is a room in my house that I have named the Room of Unfinished Projects. It is really my sewing/craft room, probably my favorite room in my house. I have spent the last three days working to finish some of these unfinished projects...I really had no idea how many there were. I kept uncovering more and more as the days went on.

As I sat working on my unfinished projects I felt right at home among them...because I too am an unfinished project! I am not a completed masterpiece framed and hanging on the wall. I am not a marble sculpture on display. I am not an intricate tapestry bound and viewed by the public. I am much like the unfinished projects in my sewing room...works in progress. Sometimes they don't look like much to anyone else but their creator...but the creator knows what it will become! And the artist sees the completed work of art already on the blank canvas!

We're the clay and you're our potter: All of us are what you made us.

(Isaiah 64:8)

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:11)

So, I am a work in progress but I have confidence in the Artist that the end result will be so much more then I could have ever imagined. For now I will continue to spend time in my Room of Unfinished Projects and remember that I too am unfinished!

P.S. I am happy to say there are now a some finished projects in the room!

(Here are just a few...)

I started this quilt as an illustration for a Women's retreat I spoke at 2 years ago...needless to say I went in another direction!

This Valentine's quilt I started just this past February...I came close to finishing it on time but really I think lost interest.

I have been moving this one around for 6 years...yes 6! I made (and finished) one just like this for my mom and just never got around to finishing mine...kinda sad because it only took an hour to finish!

This is the smaller of two scrappy flags that like the Christmas quilt have been moving from place to place unfinished for over 6 years...