The Crazy Quilt of Life

Did you ever think, child...how much piecin' a quilt's like livin' a life?...You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don't go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you'll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that's like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin' out, why you're free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o' pieces to two persons, and one'll make a "nine-patch" and one'll make a "wild-goose chase," and there'll be two quilts made out o' the same kind o' pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin'. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut 'em out and put 'em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there's a heap more in the cuttin' out and the sewin' than there is in the caliker. -Eliza Calvert Hall, Aunt Jane of Kentucky 

A quilter making a crazy quilt gathers scraps of fabric of various colors and textures; dark, medium and light colored fabrics in pleasing proportions. The scraps are stitched together in a way that seems random, but isn't. The pieced quilt is embroidered with fancy stitches using scraps of different threads and ribbons. In the hands of a skillful quilter, the finished piece is an astonishingly beautiful work of art.

I am so thankful for the various life-fabrics God has given me. The dark shades, added during the difficult times, are essential to the overall design. My life-quilt wouldn't be as rich without them.  God gives me the pieces, but I choose how to cut and embroider each piece. I think his big hand is cupped over my small one, helping guide the needle and thread, but I feel like I am stitching it together myself.

The quilt of my life is not a nine-patch with straight lines and square corners. My life is a crazy quilt. Crazy and beautiful.