I was touring a small textile manufacturing business in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a friend from college. Kim worked there as a supervisor. Her job was to oversee a small shift of seamstresses who spent their days making handcrafted Pennsylvania Dutch items.
As I marveled at the rows of ladies sewing busily at their machines, I noticed an elderly woman dressed in Amish garb moving quietly among the sewing machines. While I watched, she traveled from one work station to the next with a broom and a dustpan, sweeping up the small scraps of fabric the ladies had discarded as they cut out their patterns. Intrigued, I asked my friend about her.
“Oh, she’s been doing that for years,” she answered. “She came in one day and asked me what we did with the leftover scraps of fabric. When I told her we threw them away, she asked if she could have them.”
“What does she do with a bunch of useless scraps?” I asked.
“Believe it or not,” my friend replied, “she uses them to make quilts.” She led the way to an office area, and there on the wall hung an intricately designed Amish quilt. “Who would have thought,” I marveled, “that something so beautiful could come from leftovers you threw away?”
Ruth Myers, in her book Thirty-one Days of Praise, says to the Lord, “With You, nothing is accidental, nothing is incidental, and no experience is wasted . . . every trial that You allow to happen is a platform on which You reveal Yourself, showing Your love and power, both to me and to others looking on.”
What a comfort to know that God uses the “leftovers” of our lives. All the mistakes, all the failures, all the hurts and all the pain that we would rather throw away, are raw materials in His hands. Like the little Amish lady, God moves quietly among the events of our lives gathering up the pieces, fully able to link them together into a beautiful tapestry of grace.
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
Today, will you join Ruth Myers and me in saying to the Lord, “I praise you for Your sovereignty over the broad events of my life and over the details?” Let’s trust Him together to make something beautiful out of the events of our lives that we would rather throw away.
That was a different way of putting that! Mine I have always refered to the days of my life as "puzzle piece" I never what my big "puzzle" will look like till I see it as a whole. Some days I say that this piece goes to a different puzzle ("this can't happen to me ~ things like this always happen to someone else"! When things don't always happen the way WE think they should!) GOD knows best and that is when we have to trust him that HE knows just what piece goes where! Keep sharing ~ You have an amazing way of sharing!
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