When done with this blog post, I’m putting away my laptop for a few days and bringing out my sewing machine.  Not a task I’m excited to do.  I can sew, but I also can cook – doesn’t mean I like to do either of them, but I like the finished product.
       The product in mind this time is a “t-shirt” quilt for my daughter’s graduation open house. I have already cut and fused interfacing to over a dozen t-shirts of Kaylee’s childhood/teen years.  T-shirts from church camps, sports teams, trips to “Bean Blossom, IN” and the like.  T-shirts she has hand picked to represent Important places in her life.  In the next three weeks, I get the privilege to transform these things into a quilt for her.
     I enter this task gritting some teeth knowing I will get frustrated not being able to sew a straight line or have the t-shirts fit together “just perfect.” I would hire it out, but Kaylee informed me last year she want ME to make the quilt (no pressure there at all).
     But I’ll do it. It’s important to her. Her love languages are acts of service and gifts. Mine are quality time and words of encouragement.  I’d love to sit down over coffee with her and tell her sweet things, but she would feel uncomfortable with that, so I’ll make a quilt – it will speak to her how she feels loved.
     It’s also the least I can do for this monumental event in her life, in our relationship, in the life of our family.  It’s not just the typical “you made it’ celebration, but a celebration of wholeness and healing, of making it to the other side. Few outside our family knows the joy we are celebrating, because no one outside our family knows the pain we have walked through, and the transformation we have seen the Lord do in her, our family, and our relationship.
     Part of me wants to share the Full Story behind the pain, celebration, and the Quilt, but now is not the time. One day it will be, giving hope to others, but not yet. It’s as much her story as it is my story, and I want to respect my sweet daughter’s spirit in sharing.  So, for today, the story is to “be continued…” to bring honor and praise to the Living God for what He has done inside the walls of our home. If I ever doubted the work of God and His Holy Spirit, I do not anymore because I see his grace and redemption everyday in the eyes and smile of my firstborn and only girl.
      So to honor her, I better put the pedal to the medal of the dusty sewing machine, a labor of love and joy for the life of my daughter, a woman after God’s own heart.  I’m so proud of her and who she is becoming.
      Oops, she wants a quilt, not mushy words…..I better get stop mushing and start pushing…….the material through the machine.
      It’s the least I can do.

     

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