I trust you had a blessed Christmas with your family, or even celebrating from a distance but still keeping in touch! It always brings joy to hear from our kids and Grands : )  I also started sewing a new recliner quilt for Ed (photo attached) – the center panel and fabrics from three different friends, yet they mesh so well as if purchased together! But, I made a mistake in sewing. Had to rip it out and redo a side panel. Isn't that how God takes the pieces of our life and fits them all together perfectly?! And that got me thinking about this old blog, The Master Tailor.  Enjoy!  Sent with much love and hugs, Linda

I love to sew!  And to think it all started in 7^th grade Home Ec sewing class in Clifton, NJ.  Making a simple A-line skirt and a beach wrap (displayed on the wall by the teacher) were the humble beginnings of better things to come. 

With my mom too busy caring for a new baby brother to teach me more, my dad’s mother took me under her wings.  A former professional seamstress, Grammy helped me sew a western shirt, not an easy project with those angled points, and taught me well to use the seam ripper.  I learned to rip out my mistakes, start over, and make it right!  After all, in making life mistakes, it’s how we accept correction or change that makes all the difference.  So, when I tried to make a quilt on my own, totally wrong, my Grammy taught me the correct way.  She gifted me with several fabrics as I made a cardboard template to cut out 6-inch squares.  Laying the fabric squares out on the living room floor, I set them in a pattern, sewed up the long strips, and then sewed each long strip side by side.  With that success, Grammy then gifted me with fabric every Christmas over several years for yet more skirts and dresses. 

After my family moved to Lounsberry, NY in 1969, I bought a c.1900 treadle machine that my auctioneer cousin, Howard, was selling for only $3.  My dad oiled it, fixed the tension, got a new leather belt for the wheels, and my sewing obsession took off.   More skirts, suits and dresses were made on that treadle machine to carry me through high school, including my prom gown and wedding gown. 

Turning 20 on my first birthday after we married, my husband bought me a new Singer electric sewing machine!  And oh, if it could talk, the miles of thread and fabric it has sewn in clothes for myself, shirts for my husband, clothes for my children, and tiny clothes for their dolls.  And, now, using this same sewing machine, I’ve been making quilts in log cabin and prairie window designs, along with simple and more-detailed table runners.  And how I wish my dear Grammy could see them for she taught me well!

Have you known that feeling of contentment as you worked to create something of value for yourself or others?  Have you known what it feels like to be so engrossed in a project that you lose all sense of time?  Have you known the frustration of having to take the time to rip out a seam, or correct something that just wasn’t right?  And, because you did so, you then felt the satisfaction of seeing your finished project in all its beauty?  Maybe that’s how God views us when we recognize His hand guiding us through life’s ups and downs.  David said it so well, “If the Lord delights in a man’s ways, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”  (Psalm 37:23-24)

This poem was written in a reflective moment, remembering that various mistakes, hardships, and testing over the years have helped define character and create who we are deep in our soul.  At times, I’ve not paid sufficient attention to my sewing, made mistakes, and had to employ that seam ripper.  I’ve also realized what a life lesson that holds… because admitting I’ve made an error is the first step to correcting it, and then learning from it.  I may not want to face the trials which might be coming in the future; but, in looking back, neither can I imagine life without the hardships we have worked through.  They refine our life and shape us for the better… just like the seam ripper’s cutting edge.

And I also can’t help but realize that the Lord knows what He’s doing as He works His will through those trials which He allows each of us to face.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him...” (Romans 8:28, NIV)  For through these difficulties, He shapes and molds us into the unique and special person He means for us to be.

The Master Tailor

Linda A. Roorda

As the seamstress sits and begins to sew

Her loving care goes into each stitch

And correlation stirs within her thoughts

Of the Creator’s design deep in her soul.

In her mind’s eye she sees it take shape

From simple concept to finished result

And beams with joy, her dream made complete

As she holds with pride her creation dear.

But what the world just cannot see

Are errors which loomed about to destroy

For outward beauty can never reveal

The seam ripper’s hand in disciplined cuts.

When I beheld what the seamstress had wrought

I could not miss the significant key

Of one who deftly shaped my own soul

From even before my life came to be.

The Master Tailor gazed into the future

And pondered the me who I should be.

He planned and designed each path for my good

As He cut and sewed the fabric of me.

He carefully stitched and eased the seams

And reigned in penchants of wayward threads,

But now and then along the way

The seam ripper’s edge He gently employed.

For don’t you see without the hardships

Life’s burdens and pain cannot reflect

The greater good down deep in my heart

As seam ripper cuts shape my will to His.

On a journey I am, a work in progress

For someday when my time has come

He’ll gaze upon His workmanship

And see exactly who He planned me to be.

~~

2013