From the Pastor's Pen

Pastor Sally’s Devotional 1/15

| January 15, 2021

Dear Friends,

I added eyes to the elephants in my quilt panel today.  I almost forgot to add them.  I had finished piecing the top of my quilt panel for my grandson’s baby quilt and was putting it together with the backing and batting today in what quilters call a sandwich.  I was about to put the quilt top in place when I suddenly realized my elephants didn’t have eyes!

 

It’s actually not too surprising I forgot the eyes.  I’ve been putting this task off because I had decided to do what are called French knots for the eyes.  French knotting is an embroidery stitch that creates small dots on a piece of cloth.  I perfected French knots many years ago when I was in my embroidery craze as a teenager.  I used to embroider everything in sight in the 1970s.  The problem is that was 40-50 years ago and I just wasn’t sure if I would remember how to do it!

 

I summoned my courage, found some black embroidery floss and a needle and started to split the thread down to two strands.  As usual the thread started to snarl half way down and instinctively I caught the bottom of the thread between my teeth to hold it taught while I split the thread.  Maybe I did remember how to do this.  I threaded a needle, poked it through the cloth, wrapped the thread around the needle three times, poked the needle back through the cloth and pulled the floss through slowly creating a perfect knot like it was yesterday… 40 years ago.  The thought went through my brain, “it’s like riding a bike!”

 

It’s interesting to me how often we remember well the things we learned in our youth.  In fact we often remember the events of our youth better than we remember what happened yesterday! There is a comfort in being rooted in our past. 

 

The author of the book of Hebrews tell us  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Heb 8:13).  Now obviously Jesus is not physically the same as he was when he walked along the shores of Galilee in the 1st century.  He’s not the same as he was on the cross or coming out of the empty tomb.  Our author is not talking about physical sameness.  Our author is talking about promises and power.  He reminds us that God has promised never to leave us or forsake us.  He urges us to have courage because the Lord is our helper.  God’s commitment to us in Jesus Christ is unshakable.  That commitment to humanity took shape at the beginning of creation and has never faltered and never will.

 

Some things from our childhood hover about us our whole lives long.  Certainly one of those things that has been with us from our birth is the love of God.  We can depend on that love to never slip away from us.

 

Peace,

Pr. Sally

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