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By:  Dennis Bates

A very special quilt hangs on a stand next to our bed. My great aunt made the quilt when she lived in a small river town less than three miles from where I live now. In the late 30′s she won first prize with the quilt at a local fair, and it might have been one of the only “big” things she ever accomplished. Her 30 seconds of fame as we would say today.

She was by any standard an ordinary person, but one we looked forward to visiting when we were kids. Maybe it was the simplicity of that ordinariness or the fact that she always shared whatever she had with us, and often it wasn’t all that much. But it was the way she shared it that made it so good, not what it was. She always got out her best dishes even for the kids and made over us like we were truly some sort of special visitor and not just kids. Even when you’re a kid, you notice things like that.

If you look at the quilt she made carefully, you can see that it is made up of dozens and dozens of small individual pieces of cloth meticulously sewn together by hand. When the smaller pieces are joined with other small pieces, they become bigger pieces and the bigger pieces become even larger pieces, until eventually you have a quilt. It is easy to see and feel the love that went into the making of that quilt because making a quilt is truly just that, a labor of love. Making a quilt takes time, hard work and a commitment to finish what the quilt maker started.

Many people, especially today, would have thrown the small scraps of cloth away feeling that they were worthless and of no value. But the quilt maker saw beauty in even the smallest scrap of cloth and value in even the plainest and most ordinary, so the quilt maker rescued them and kept them in a safe place until the time was right. And when the time was right all the small scraps of cloth were joined together creating something that was bigger, better and more beautiful than any individual remnant of cloth.

God is a quilt maker. We are each like a scrap of cloth to God. Some of us are more colorful, some of us are more expensive, and some of us are the perfect size, while others are not. God sees value in all of us whether we are plain, ordinary or a silky red piece of expensive fabric. He doesn’t want any of us to be thrown away. Instead, He reaches down and offers to store us in a safe place until we are ready for His quilt.

We can choose to be part of God’s quilt, or we can chose not to be. Romans 9, verse 10 tells us how. If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we can be part of God’s quilt. It’s that simple. Three words: Jesus is Lord, plus one belief: He was raised from the dead. Only in God’s math does three plus one equal infinity.

So the choice is yours. You can live your life until you become a worthless scrap of cloth that is thrown away, or, you can let God save you so you can be part of His eternal quilt. Personally, I hear that God is the best Quilt Maker of all time, and I’m staying for the Quilting Bee.

Dennis

Want more inspiration?  Visit:  http://spiritlightbooks.com  where you’ll find stories full of God’s love and hope… Signifying everything!

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