Quilt a metaphor for my life?

Last year Jen and I took a trip to Lancaster, PA. 

While on that fabulous Fun trip I bought lots and lots of 

my very favorite fabrics .... 1930's repro.

I have always had a love of these fabrics. 

I knew that I wanted to make HUGE dresden plates out of them

and make a quilt for my bed. 

I also purchased red fabric for the sashing... it is an odd choice

for me since I don't really love red all that much. 

It was a labor of love hand stitching all those wedges together to

make each Dresden. 

I cut all the sashing and got to work. 

I put the quilt top together...

I HATED IT! 

Seriously Loathed it. 

All I saw was the red. 

eww. 

I didn't even take a picture of it. 

I folded it up and put it away. 

I did tell my Mom about it. 

She kept telling me that she would pull it apart....

She took it and ripped out all the stitches.

(What a MOM) 

she then carefully washed 12 HUGE blocks 

rolled them and placed them carefully into a bag.

Which I carefully placed onto a shelf into my closet. 

I wanted to forget about it. 

I was annoyed and frustrated by it.

It was not how I envisioned it. 

My Mother knowing how much work went into 

all those blocks kept at me. 

"lets take it up to Kindred Quilts and figure this out" She'd say.

So one day in the fall we did just that. 

I picked out a cream color Kona to do all the sashing with. 

A wonderful Lady won owns the shop figured out all the math for the sashing and the all that

stuff that goes into a quilt. 

We came home and the fabric sat and sat. 

Mom finally cut it last week. 

(I was in no hurry) 

Mind you I have no directions for this quilt... 

it was something that was in my head 

Also, I am not a quilter.... really I am not. 

Quilters would not consider me to be a QUILTER. 

with that said. 

I actually started to get excited about getting the quilt top together. 

So I began. 

Got it together... and realized that I had pieced it together all wrong. 

Oh I was not happy. 

but, I was going to leave it. I was going to leave it together wrong, 

because I was frustrated and sick of this quilt. 

My Mom dropped in yesterday. I brought out the quilt top to show her...

"Amy, I will rip it apart for you." she told me again. 

No Mom, No. I don't want you too.... 

She took it anyway. 

She sat and drew me a picture of how it is supposed to look.

Of how it will be when It is finally finished. 

How could I have seen it so differently in my mind

I loved the idea of it. I loved the vision I had

standing in a tiny little quilt shop in Lancaster with Jen, a year ago. 

The vision I had was so different then the one that my

Mom had just loving drawn out for me to see. 

She had showed me that what will be the finished 

quilt is more beautiful then anything I would have ever imagined 

or dreamt of in my head.  

  I received an email from her last night that simply said. 

(All unwanted stitches removed, ready for a good pressing, and then ready to stitch!  
Didn't, take long.   Talk to you on Sunday,  Mom) 

Which started me thinking. 

that quilt is like my life. 

I had a grand dream of what I wanted it to be. 

I wanted to quickly stitch up some pieces of fabric together. 

Held together by more pieces of thread and fabric. and when I thought 

I had finished it I disliked it. 

My Mother, like My Heavenly Father told me, 

I will take it out for you. I will help you to make it the way it is supposed to be. 

(and he does that for me, when I let HIM)

and He has done that for me my entire life. 

And My Mother showed me that in helping me with this quilt.

No, I wouldn't have dreamt this life for me. 

I wouldn't have chosen this  bumpy road or journey for my life. 

I didn't envision it this way, But When God looks at our Whole lives

He sees the completed Quilt. 

He sees all the unwanted stitches. He sees all the scars. 

He sees where he has mended us. and Healed us. 

and carried us along. 

He sees the beautiful Quilt that my Mom drew out for me yesterday. 

That he can use to bring others to Him. 

If I can touch one person with the trials that I have gone thru in my life,

Then every bump, scar, bruise is worth it.

Because in the end, He will take that quilt even with all its imperfections

(and it will be more loved and beautiful for them) 

 I am more loved and blessed and beautiful for every scar I have. 

I am more desired and gifted then I ever allow myself to feel. 

I have a precious, precious gift of my  life. 

No one else has my story. It is only mine. 

and I am so grateful for it. 

I needed this quilt to be a reminder of all that I just wrote about. 

I needed to make every single mistake

so that I could allow correction to take place and heal my heart. 

Thank you Lord,  that you used my Mom to show me that lesson. 

Thank you Mom that you allowed God to work in you to help me. 

This verse has been in my head all week. 

I found it on pinterest and I understand why now. 

I recreated it and please fell free to take it. it is high res so you can print it out if you want to. 

Romans 5:8

The Message (MSG)

 ^6-8Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. 

*revision to this post. 

The image above was recreated by me, 

I  found it on PINTEREST. 

I didn't have a direct link back to the 

picture. until now. Mollie at 

http://crookedtooth.tumblr.com/

emailed me to let me know that the image was indeed hers. 

just to be clear, I just was so moved by it that I honestly and truly recreated it in Photoshop.

sorry to offend anyone.