My Grandmother was a quilt maker. This was out of necessity.  She had 11 children and could not afford to buy bed clothing.

 

I remember watching her as she would make her quilts.  She would use my grandfather’s old shirts for her “piece work.”   She would cut the shirts up into little squares, circles or triangles.   She would then take her needle and thread and begin to sew the pieces together until she would form the quilt blocks.  I would wonder why each piece fit where it did.  It often would not make any sense.  I would see the raw edges, the loose strings and the misplaced pieces, and I would think, “that is ugly.”

 

But she would continue to sew…. Stitch by stitch, block by block…. until she had the quilt top finished.  Once again, it was not (in my sight anyway) very beautiful.  It often appeared confusing. 

 

She would then place it on her quilting frame, where once again, she would allow her fingers to sew one stitch at a time. Sometimes the quilting went very slow, sometimes it seemed to go very fast, but always it was at the speed she needed to do it right.

Finally the day would arrive when she would loosen the quilt from the frame.   She would unroll it and then turn it over… and it would be beautiful.  It was only then that I realized that each tread was needed and that each quilt piece and each quilt block fit just perfectly.

 

Life is like quilt work.  God takes many pieces of our lives and stitches them together.  I don’t understand why some pieces fit where they do.  I don’t understand why some of the raw edges are there. I don’t understand why the death of a child or a teen is there. I don’t understand why someone who is godly has to suffer a life of pain. I don’t understand why life can be so cruel. 

 

But I do know that life is “Piece Work.”   One day, God will  unroll the heavenly quilt of our lives and we will see the beautiful work of God.  We will see why each thread was needed. We will see how the pieces came together perfectly. We will see that each block was in its rightful place. We will see that what we thought was raw edges, was in reality a perfect fit in God’s heavenly work.

 

Remember, life is piecework, the quilt won’t be finished until we reach heaven.