I was unmaking the bed where our adult daughter had slept the night before. Sheets were deposited into the washer, mattress traipsed back into it’s storage. As I picked up the second of the two handmade quilts to fold, I noticed that one of them was in bad shape.
The quilted stitches …
were gone, as if they’d disintegrated (though, probably they just pulled loose).
Now the top and bottom fabrics were no longer holding, tightly attached to the quilt batt in the middle and I feared that the stability of the quilt was in danger.
This quilt, lovingly stitched by a multi-generational family of ladies I respected, adored, learned from and played with as a girl, was gifted to us as a wedding gift, almost thirty-five years ago. It is faded, fraying and now, coming apart at the seems …
much like any marriage of thirty-five years.
I felt a sadness creep into my heart as I lifted it into my arms, as I longed for it to be, once again, brand new.
The quilt or the marriage, one might ask … at that very moment, maybe both. Because, we have, after all, a very human marriage of two very flawed and selfish individuals.
I pondered disposing of the quilt,
but then, the more practical side of me took a closer look, a further consideration. The quilt, though originally beautiful, was not made to simply look good. The pieces of it were stitched together so that it would bring warmth to those covered by it, underneath it.
Immediately I thought how similar that is to marriage. Two individuals, like the top and bottom fabrics of a quilt, can be so beautiful on their own, or even together. Yet, the depth of their warmth is limited to what each person brings into the marriage.
When God is present … but not just present …
when the two allow Him to be connected to each of them and then they are tied together,
with Him at the center
then they are cooking with gas! And the warmth (literally) between them is the One who also sustains each of them as individuals (first) and them together (secondly).
Sometimes we think that simply being married to another Christ-follower is the most important ingredient. But it doesn’t take much thinking to come up with examples of married Christ-followers who do anything but love each other sacrificially, nor do they put the needs of the other ahead of themselves. Couples who do not even share of their walk with God, with each other.
These are examples of anything but Christ-centered marriages. They are made of a top sheet, a bottom sheet and a God in the middle who is not even truly stitched to either, let along to both.
No, if we want the warmth of God, we need to stay stitched, first to Him … individually,
then to each other with Him at the center.
itsawonderfilledlife 