MAKING THE 'GRADE'

I was sewing a little dress for my 4-year-old granddaughter when the pattern's directions reminded me of a word I hadn't heard in a while: “grade.” Reaching back to my high school home economics classes (half a century ago!), I recalled the revelation that “grade” refers to how seams on curves (like for collars or faced arm holes) needed to be clipped and then one side cut closer to the seam stitches. That way, when turned right-side out, the seam wouldn't be as bulky. So “grade” I did.

That got me thinking about how Christians need to undergo some “grading” by the Master Tailor. I'm not talking some A-B-C (like in school) of how “spiritual” you are. Rather, it's how He sees parts of our fallen personality that need to be cut away so that His better plan for our lives can be achieved. That's the point of Hebrews 12, which focuses on how spiritual discipline (trimming and cutting ungodly traits and habits) is part of God's plan to grow us as children of faith. “Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best,” Hebrews 12:10 says, “but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.” The eventual result is to be “a harvest of righteousness and peace” (v. 11).

The Bible doesn't give a lot of ink to seamstresses, but we can rightfully conclude that hand-sewing clothes of hand-loomed fabric was an intensive process. The Old Testament priests wore specially-hand-tailored and embellished uniforms (Exodus 28). We also know about a New Testament believer, Dorcas, who gifted the poor with her sewing (Acts 9). Jesus' clothing included a seamless undergarment, so special that the soldiers who crucified Him gambled to see who'd get it (John 19:23-24).

Perhaps a better picture of the value of handcrafts comes from the construction of the temple. It wasn't thrown together haphazardly. The stones were cut and groomed to precision measurements before being taken to the temple building side. And there's the analogy. The Christian walk is not just “saying a prayer” and then making minor lifestyle adjustments. It's a radical change from the original raw “me.” It's letting God chisel away the rough and ungodly parts until we're shaped for His kingdom:

You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

To pull it back to the imagery of clothing construction, we're to be like carefully-crafted garments to reflect the holiness and beauty of God. Haphazard living—ignoring sin here and there—is like a wiggly zipper or a puckered collar. When God decides to “grade” (trim) us in the process of spiritual growth, He has good reason for it.

The little dress (sundress or jumper) I sewed my granddaughter wasn't perfect, but it was the best I could do. I made the skirt extra full so she could twirl in it and pretend she was a ballerina. She will outgrow it, of course, as I hope she will also outgrow childish ways and steadily become a woman of God. It will mandate regular “grading”--trimming away of attitudes and behaviors that are wrong—but the end result will be worth it.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She was born in 1919 and died at 59 in 1978, leaving behind a crammed "sewing room." 

Storage by God

Okay, I went back on my word. I'd once said, “That’s a good number to quit on” when I finished my 500^th patchwork baby blanket of a three-year effort.  These I had donated to three local hospitals for “special needs,” mostly impoverished families with little or nothing for their newborns. The recipients were not known to me, though a nurse friend told of giving one to a crying woman who came in alone to deliver her 5^th baby.  Because of a language barrier, nurses assumed a difficult family situation and unwanted baby. Others went to homeless families.

When I first started, I thought making fifty baby  blankets was a stretch.  I didn’t count on God’s storage containers.When word got out of my project, He opened the trap doors at the bottom of the “supplies elevator.”  From what people gave me or I found for a pittance at yard sales or thrift stores, the project kept growing. My “goals” reached 100, then 250….well, I’m now at 519 and have the raw materials for three more. One thrift store is especially dangerous for me; they get a lot of fabric from estate situations.  While my husband browses for books (he likes to donate quality children’s books to schools), he leaves me alone to dig through the fabric piles.

On one recent trip through farmlands, I had to smile when I sensed an analogy between my “blanket ministry” and the grain storage towers along the route.  I thought of that famed verse (used for many tithing sermons) from Malachi 3:10:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Malachi was right about “not have room enough for it.” We live in what’s called a “starter home,” meaning small, about right for a couple. We raised two children in it and now it’s full of grandkid play stuff and books. I don’t have the luxury of a sewing suite, so the supplies get stuffed under beds or tucked behind my clothes in the closet. Having little storage means I sew the blankets up as quickly as I can.

Oh, the ways people “supplied”! One woman I met at a yard sale gave me four bulging garbage bags of flannel scraps from dozens of pajamas she had sewn (I think as a business).  I had to piece them, but seventeen baby blankets resulted.  Another time I found two garbage bags full of fabric scraps left at our house. A third woman delivered boxes of fabric she cleaned out from her quilting hobby.

I think God grinned as He poured it out. As I neared my 500^th blanket, I learned that other seamstresses had taken up the cause. As though He was removing this “ministry,” both the compulsion and supply eased up, except for a few from time to time.

My sewing skills aren’t anything famous. But I’ve learned God can even use the lesser-skilled for assignments that you’d say “no way!” if God wasn’t in it to prod you on and pour down the materials.

Sew & Sow: A Mother's Legacy

The "triangle quilt." When
the backing rotted, I took it
apart and sewed a new
back to it. Oh, all those
yarns to place and tie!

When I changed our winter blanket the other day for a spring-weight one my mother made, I relived some memories of her. Composed entirely of triangles cut from her sewing scraps, it reminded me of how she made use of all the “scraps” of her life, including an impoverished childhood and chronic illness. When she died at age 59 of cancer, I told God I felt she died way too young. But I knew in His wisdom He had allowed that, considering her life’s work done.

The phrase “sew & sow” might well characterize that work. A sewing skill that began with the printed cotton bags of Depression-era flour sacks, and ended with tailoring suits for my father, wore out three sewing machines.  When I moved from home, my little 10x10 bedroom became stuffed with sewing paraphernalia previously tucked throughout the house. Her sewing “stash” required an entire estate sale day by itself. Like the noble Proverbs 31 woman, she made sure her family (including the two grandchildren she lived long enough to meet) was adequately (and thriftily) dressed.  Though she didn’t sew for income (Proverbs 31:24) she spent hours sewing for others, including clothes for her disabled mother, and lap blankets for the residents of a local convalescent home. 

As for “sow,” that word covers two aspects of her lifestyle. When my parents had a garden, she overestimated the power of zucchini plants. She could have written a zucchini recipe book. What we couldn’t eat right away ended up shredded in bags in the freezer. But she also sowed spiritually, known as a woman who loved God and the scriptures. Though her formal education ended at first year of junior college, she read her Bible faithfully. One of the cherished Bible versions I keep in the “reference shelf” above my computer is her “Amplified New Testament” with her red-pencil notations.

My mother and me, late 1947

She also sowed a legacy of overcoming. She was born prematurely, in a log cabin, to an impoverished Norwegian immigrant farmer and his polio-disabled wife.  She was the oldest of nine raised in the hardships of eastern Montana dry-land farming. A relative, knowing she had no future at home, sent for her to come to Washington state to junior college. That’s where she met my father. Together they weathered the sparse war years and she birthed my sister and, six years later, me. I think they had hoped for a “John Jr.,” but went with the feminine form of “John,” Jeanne.

I never matched her “sowing” (as in gardening) or “sewing” (as in men’s suits) skills. But she permitted me to grow in the unique ways God gifted me, applauding my achievements and not wanting her poor health (asthma, broken bones, finally cancer) to get in the way of being there for us.

Someone recently wrote about how to honor one’s parents. There are obvious ways, like remembering them on birthdays and holidays, and making sure their needs are taken care of.  But what of parents who have died, like mine both did in 1978, when I was 30?  I think the apostle Paul gave us a clue when he wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). My “sew & sow” mother was no slacker, and I hope I have shown that trait. I am confident she is in the presence of the Lord for that “someday” reunion, when we can compare notes, woman-to-woman, mother-to-daughter, child-of-God to child-of-God.