I was out
walking yesterday, with my dog Finegan, we went to the cemetery. The word cemetery had been mentioned twice at
church on two separate days and I thought ‘I need to go there.' I've been meaning to go there. So Finegan and I went for a walk in the
cemetery, we walked and looked and talked and thought much. As we went, we gently stepped among the corner stones that have been placed there. The stones of faith honoured, of families
separated, of lives lived, the markers of people who loved and were loved. We
were enveloped in the day, it was warm and beautiful. The love of the saints
that were laid to rest there wrapped around us, and covered over them, were the
grounds that had recently been trimmed and pruned and kept. I love that.
I love
knowing that my saint, the space marked for him, is cared for, honored.
Today it
snowed and I imagined those sacred spaces of mine and others, covered in snow,
covered with a blanket from God’s own heart, one of purest white, made together
from the softest form of flakes and lace, so natural and pure and intricate and
fragile...God’s own heart covering all sins, saints forgiven, white as snow...loved by God.
I heard someone say, what if God has so much love, that it overflows on to us and all we
have to do is receive it. Blessings
given, received and in turn, given away.
He went on to say that if we have been given a blessing that we should
in turn overflow it on to someone else, whatever that blessing may be, singing,
teaching, playing an instrument, writing, baking or even making a quilt. That’s what he said “...even making a quilt”
I have been
blessed by an overflow of this kind of love.
This is the
quilt that Dana made...as a gift, for me. Her friend Anna encouraged her to make it, giving her the
thought pattern to build it, with squares and pieces cut from love, cut with
love and stitched together with the overflow.
The fabric
that makes up this gift of love is pieces of John. Pieces that are cut from clothing that
belonged to her Dad. Shirts, jeans,
jackets, patches of squares cut from them, pieced and fitted and stitched
together forming this gift, this blessing of love from her heart.
Isn’t it
beautiful! I wish you could touch it.
When John was a little boy he called his blanket ‘my geeka’ and when he was needing his favourite thing, he wanted his geeka, even after we were married. If he was sick and cold and wanting to be covered, he wanted his favorite thing. Now it is mine, my favorite thing, peices of him, my geeka.
It is a reminder of the love
that once held me on cold winter nites, the love that kept me warm every nite, the love that laughed at my
foolishness, the love that worked alongside me on those hard, hard working
days, the love that paid for everything beautiful, the love that supported our
family day after day after day, the love of the hands held out to hold... I
love that. I miss that.
Love and
hurt and pain, you cannot hold them in, they need to come out, they overflow and they
need a place to go. If we are blessed
with His overflow, hurt and pain goes to healing, mine is in words, Dana’s
comes in the form of this quilt. Love
is the blessing from it all.
I am reminded of the little song I sang as a girl, with actions, hands cupped together, then rolling over each other, over and over... overflowing.
‘My cup is full and running over,
the Lord blessed me,
I am happy as can be,
my cup is full and running over.’
I am not
quite yet ‘as happy as can be’ but I am getting there, His love is covering me.
