Give me the scraps

The photo above is of a quilt that I won as a door prize at a ladies brunch back in the spring of 2019, I believe was the year. You'll have to excuse me for not quite remembering the exact year as there were a lot of things going on in my life at that time. I guess that's why this patch worked quilt struck a chord within in.

Allow me to share a little about that day. I had gotten off work late the evening before, came home to have to care for my husband that had recently been released from the hospital with what was the beginning of chronic hospitalizations and illness. I had been invited to this brunch by my counselor at the time as a way of getting some fellowship and to be around other ladies instead of a constant focus on him and my work.

The morning dawned bright and cheerful, totally not matching the mood I had. I awakened with trepidation over going. I got up and got ready but drug my feet getting there. I was in no rush. I arrived to the venue and I was gripped with fear. I had a panic attack in the car and almost turned around and left without ever going in. As I saw other ladies arriving, I pulled myself together and went in. 

Everything was extravagant. Our hostesses were wearing these bright aprons, a specific fabric indicated which hostess was your server for the day. I made it through the brunch and my counselor came up to me and hugged my neck. She asked me to meet her afterwards, that she had something for me. She handed me a bag which contained this quilt. 

I went home afterwards, got dressed and went to work. A few days later, I had an appointment with my counselor where she told me about the quilt. The organizers had reached out to a local seamstress to make the aprons for the brunch. She had plenty of scraps left after cutting and sewing each one together so she wanted to do something special with what remained. But not only did she want to, she felt she had to. This was her last sewing project ever. She had lost her sight to the point she could no longer do what she loved.

That story resonated deeply within me. I put that quilt in a drawer and kept it put away. I didn't want the dogs to chew it up or anything to get spilled on it, stained or destroyed in any way. It even served as a catalyst for me to write my life's story of the broken pieces coming together to make something new and useful. 

But just three years after I wrote all of that, I found myself at rock bottom once again. I was broken and bruised in such a way that I truly wanted to die. The medical issues piling up with constant trips to the doctor, hospitalizations, surgeries, bills and more bills, I summarized that it was better if I wasn't here. 

Then I met a Man that changed everything. I thought I knew Him before. I had prayed to Him many times. But each time, it was as if my prayers rang back having hit a steel wall. You know the telephone message you get with the three beeps that says "we're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again," that was me and my prayers. 

Today, I am standing once again in a place where I feel my life is about to change. Everything that I have thought I knew for the past 16 years has come crashing around me in the past few days and that which was will be no more. How do I pick up the pieces? I can't pick them up. But what I can do is take the scraps which are left and put them into the hands of the one that knit me together to begin with. He will know how to put the scraps together to make it even better in the end.