The quilt of joyful tears (Fourth Sunday in Advent)

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I snapped this photo earlier today. I so LOVE this quilt!

This morning feels like a good while ago, what with a deluge of rain falling, causing flooding all over Humboldt County. Highway 101 was even closed near College of the Redwoods, both sides of the freeway inundated with water. We spent an uneventful day, thankfully, although keeping track of a nearby field that kept looking more like a lake. The chickens had some outdoor time, mostly spent under the awning near the coop. They happily dug through gravel, no idea what they found so intriguing, and I'm also glad they can't tell me. Only four eggs today, WHEW! Take a break girls.


But all of that wasn't on my mind when I coined today's title. More to matter was peace, grace, love; all those I experienced in great waves very early this morning, wiping my teary face on the top edge of the Cornflower quilt, what I've been snuggling under for the last couple of weeks, wanting a full-size cozy, what with winter knocking on the door. It arrived officially today, what with all that rain, yet it wasn't chilly out, not even when walking in the showers. No wind, just rain falling hard before eleven, then on and off misty drizzle the rest of the day. It's not supposed to rain this evening, so maybe some of the flooding will subside. The temporary lake near our house will stick around though, perhaps lasting well into February.

Again I'm getting sidetracked. Right now I'm icing my right meniscus, aggravated as I made a quilt sandwich for the top recently completed. It's not a small quilt, measuring sixty-three inches by seventy-two inches, though that doesn't take into account the half-inch that will be folded under around the entire perimeter as I plan not to use a binding, instead employing the Kawandi method. Which still doesn't explain the significance of my pre-dawn faith revelations, and how it's the Fourth Sunday of Advent, rain notwithstanding.

I'm currently lying on the sofa, the quilt of grace keeping me warm while a bag of frozen peas is pressed against the back of my right knee. I'm grateful for this quilt, but it's not the one that dried my face earlier today. Those tears were borne of an immense love gently coursing through me, lingering in my heart as if to remind me how loved I am. Isn't that a marvelous notion, to know you are so beloved that you cry, then wipe your cheeks on a getting softer with each washing quilt. The Cornflower quilt usually rests on the back of the couch, decorating that piece of furniture. In using it recently, and washing it a few times, it's starting to lose the stiffness, well the front is becoming more pliable. The back is an old flannel sheet, already well loved and cozy to the touch. Not threadbare, lol, but certainly broken in. But I didn't wipe my face on the back. I used the front, feeling such amazing peace for the heavenly message and thankfulness for my cozy quilt. Both are gifts from God, because making an EPP quilt is a LOT of work, and takes a LOT of love for handsewing. And a relationship with Jesus Christ? Again a LOTTA LOVE. But the work is all his.

The rocker where I sit in the mornings, where I'll be in about twelve hours.

It's been a long road, Jesus and me. I was five, he was...eternal. No LOL's, but certainly a wide smile on my face. No tears this evening, although I'm tired, not the young gal I was when I first asked Jesus to be my lifelong friend. After getting the quilt sandwich onto my work table in the office, I walked away. Previously I would have started basting, a bag of safety pins waiting. Today, I was tired. It was already after three p.m., and all I wanted to do was drink my Metamucil, then ice my knee. LOLOL! Yup, definitely time for that, because I'm fifty-nine and on a day like today, feeling every year of it. Well, mostly feeling it. I did dishes after dinner, because my husband was outside taking care of the chickens. After washing dishes, then I iced my knee, and now those twenty minutes have passed while writing this post. Instead of reclining on the sofa, now I'm seated, that quilt of grace still keeping me warm as I type random moments of my day, the fourth Sunday of Advent, no tears in sight.

Those tears of joy were the kind resembling the most precious gift; a tending of my soul, a renewal of my faith, a reminder that I am loved beyond measure. I hope you know an inkling or an avalanche of that holy love, and I wish you a wonderful start to the week during which Christmas is celebrated!

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