Hello my friends. I am still keeping on, I just haven’t posted in awhile. It’s partly due to the fact that it has been the month of June, and therefore absolutely gorgeous outside. And it’s partly due to the fact that I wasn’t sure I could KMMS.
I feel like my husband and I came up with “KMMS” ourselves, but it’s more likely a common abbreviation. But just in case, it means “Keep My Mouth Shut”.
I have very strong, and I believe, solid opinions about both religion and politics, just like everyone else does. And as everyone else knows, those are the verboten subjects when in social settings. And socially, those very things are swiftly changing right before our astonished eyes. And whether our society is changing for better or for worse is the fodder for opinionated and heated debates. I get to choose whether or not to engage in heated debates here on this blog. So unless it’s about prewashing fabric, or knitting vs. crochet, I’ll choose to KMMS.
Thank goodness we have other things to talk about. Let’s converse in a polite setting, shall we? First, a welcome to my new subscribers! I’m glad you found me and I would love to hear your comments about the Bible, about quilts, or about whatever. I’m also so very appreciative of my older subscribers, too. It’s been over a year now, and I wouldn’t have believed when I started that I’d get this comfortable with this whole thing. I have you to thank because your kind comments built confidence and gave encouragement.
Next, I watched as my grown kids honored their dad on Father’s Day last Sunday. They really blessed our hearts. Our daughter decided we could all enjoy doing a puzzle together so she dumped this box out on to the coffee table. Now, we weren’t the kind of family that assembled 1000 piece puzzles when they were growing up, so this was a novel experience. Some of us found it to be relaxing, others, stressful. We all agreed that if you first looked at the picture, you could connect the pieces more easily.
Last, I’ve pieced another border block for the Bible Sampler Quilt as I read my way through the book of Zechariah.
Speaking of puzzles: I always wonder what the people were thinking back in that day when they heard the puzzling messages from God coming out of the mouths of the prophets. I’d imagine myself standing with the crowd in my scratchy tunic, listening under a bright sun. I’d be hanging towards the back, trying to hide my astonishment. The sweaty hairs would tickle on the back of my neck. My heart would drop to my feet every time he’d describe what terrible events would happen because we had stirred up the anger of the Lord. My head would spin trying to keep his references to fiery cedars, dry rivers, scepters of Egypt, and so on straight in my mind.
The crowd would quietly disperse, and I’d ruminate over the message all afternoon. Maybe there would be some discussion at the dinner table within the safety of food and family. We’d try to make sense of the words and fit them into the context of our lives, of our future.
Nowadays, we have the luxury of the perfect and complete word of God all written down in the Bible. We can enjoy putting the pieces of the puzzling prophesies together because we are able to refer to the whole picture.
I’m going to connect a passage in Zechariah with a New Testament one:
Zechariah 11:13 – Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.”
Matthew 27:3-10 – Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. . .and he threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed, and he went away and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.” And they counseled together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers.”
Isn’t that astonishing? The connection is so specific, and those passages were written how many years apart from each other?
I am so glad that I am plugging away at this Bible project during this time that will make it into the history books in a big way. In the middle of 2020, I am reminded that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He’s got this covered, and everything is going to be okay.
Cuts With Scissors 