Sunday, January 11, 2009

Starting Over....With a Pattern

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like this? When a New Year rolls around, I feel like I’m getting an opportunity to “start over”. And as I’ve thought this week about things I could “start over” this year on, I recalled some lessons I learned earlier in life. May I share a few of them with you today?

As a teenager in high school, I took a class in Home Economics. My teacher taught our class to cook and sew. We had to learn to go strictly by a recipe to make bread or a cake or whatever we were going to cook that day. Not one time did she ever tell us to go in the kitchen and just dump any assortment of ingredients in a bowl and see what we would come up with!

The same rules applied to our sewing. We had to be measured to see what size pattern to buy. Then we had to carefully cut the pattern out and pin it on the material. The really tedious part started then. Very carefully we had to cut around the pattern pieces, making sure we cut a single notch at certain places and a double notch at others so we could make the pieces fit together right once we had them cut out. (If you sew you will know what I’m talking about….if not, that’s o.k.!) Oh my, but it was often annoying! Trying to take those odd shaped pieces of cloth and fit them together to make a garment was a challenge to most of us. Sometimes we would put them together backwards or upside down. We would get a laugh out of it but then we would have to pull out the threads and start over.

Once I was making a dress with long sleeves and my teacher made me take one sleeve out three or four times before SHE was satisfied with the results. By then it had so many little needle holes around the sleeve opening where I had taken the seams apart that I was almost afraid I would not be able to wear it out in public. I just hated taking the thing apart and starting over. But my teacher was trying to teach us to do things right.

I hated it then but now as I look back on it, I appreciate the lessons she helped me to learn. She taught me that we need a pattern for life. Alongside the lessons of cooking and sewing, she threw in lessons of morality and human kindness. She helped me to realize that things don’t just “happen”… there has to be a plan or a pattern and then good old hard work to make it happen.

So it is also in the spiritual realm. We don’t just grow in the Lord accidentally. We have to have a plan or a pattern. There has to be fellowship with Him through prayer and Bible study and then there will be growth. When we make our own plans without seeking the Lord’s will, then sometimes He has to “rip out the seams” and start over. This can be a painful time in our lives and we may wonder if we will ever be able to be seen again “out in public” when we feel like there are scars out there for all to see. But our Lord is a Master workman and his work turns out beautiful every time. If we will just follow His pattern, the Bible, then we will be able to avoid the painful process of starting over so often.

(1 Timothy 1: 16 “Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a PATTERN to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”)

Praying that I will follow God's pattern more so that I have to start over less often!

Marilyn



9 comments:

Yolanda said...

Marilyn,

Vision...Miss Marilyn, you are such a Lady!! You have great visions that I appreciate and relate to as well. Thank you for the time you take to encourage and teach us.

Lovingly,
Yolanda

Lisa said...

Good analogy Marilyn! Nicely said.
Blessings - Lisa

Leah Adams said...

Wonderful, wonderful thoughts. My mother always made all of our clothes when we were kids and even into adulthood and she was a master seamstress. She taught herself to sew. I love the way you correlated sewing and our lives.

Leah

Cindy said...

Amen Marilyn! So many times I have had to rip the seam out and start over because I proceeded on my own without seeking God. It is so much easier to follow God's pattern. Thanks for the reminder.

Kay Martin said...

I love to sew and being precise in preparing the fabric and following pattern instructions makes or breaks the finished product.

Lately I've had some tough issues to process and I've thought of how Jesus said over and over He could do nothing except He see and do what He saw the Father doing. Imagine Jesus...fully God...voluntarily emptying Himself to be Man to show us the Pattern of living. On my tough things I would pray to see Jesus in my dilemmas and I would remember a Bible story that showed me Jesus.

Indeed He is the Pattern!!!

As a sewer I loved today's post.

Jana said...

SO true! Thank you for sharing.

Msha said...

Such a great lesson! It's true that unless we are intentional, few things are going to just happen and be right. It's also funny that we always try to do things the hard way when all along we've been given the pattern.

Thanks for sharing!

Cathryn said...

Hi Marilyn. You have a wonderful way of drawing to ideas together - kind of like a word picture - and it really sticks that way. Your illustrations are great. I'm a seamstress and I know all about those patterns so the concept has really stuck with me. Thank you for sharing that. Blessings ~ Cathryn

Anonymous said...

Wonderful! I too love the new year and it makes me appreciate how truly each day is a new beginning, a gift from the LORD. What an appropriate analogy. Thank you for sharing!