I am a very tactile person. Texture, taste, smell, as well as looking to see and listening to hear. I’ll often touch the walls of buildings I’m walking past to match what they look like with what they feel like, and I love the smell of books. My body runs quite cold, with a 35.5C average temperature, but I’m a shoes off person, I need to feel the floor under my feet, which doesn’t help with keeping warm really…
I really love pattern and richness as well. Which I think is part of the reason I love textiles so much. The colour! The patterns! The smell! The textures! Excuse me while I go drool over my quilting stash for a while…
Did you learn about the makeup of fabric, and the way that it is made in Home Economics in High School?
The warp is the thread that is tied onto the loom and is the basis for the cloth. The weft is the thread that is used to help weave the colour or pattern in the cloth, it travels back and forth in either a hand shuttle or a mechanical shuttle. (Wiki)
If the foundation threads – the warp threads, in a fabric are not strong and there are threads that break, then repairs need to be done. These are relatively simple tasks, but they take time. Not only do you have to isolate the offensive thread, but you then have to perform the repair. However, in weaving, before you can finish the repair by sewing in the end so that the new warp thread is invisible and the repair does not look like it has taken place at all, first it requires that you weave at least 7 to 10 centimetres of pattern. (YouTube Fun!)
This is so the structure of the cloth around the new warp thread is strong, and the thread is integrated in its place in the whole cloth.
I find it so fascinating that there is so much in the world around us that Father uses to remind me or teach me things about how life works.
See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Matthew 6:28b (NIV)
Jesus was the ultimate notice-r. He saw things. He saw the point of things being where they were, He saw what they could teach us about ourselves and about the nature of God. He pointed things out then and He’s still pointing things out now.
So when He talks to me about repairing a warp thread, I’d better listen…! These threads of our lives are the things that attach us to the loom; they attach us to what is important, and they make up the basis of who we are. Those threads need to be strong and without flaws, and if there is a knot or a weak spot or a break, then they need to be repaired. The pattern of who we are cannot be woven on warp threads that are broken, knotted or weak. If this happens, the cloth that comes out will not be useful, it will be lumpy, unsightly, or it will get holes, tear and expose our bodies underneath it. An important piece that needed to be strong might be useless, or an intricate pattern completely spoiled.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)
Hebrews 11 lists a bunch of people whose lives, under examination would not be considered flawless. This is not new information; however, they are some of the people whose lives have become spring-boards for our understanding of humanity in relationship with God. Some colossal mistakes were made by some of these people, mistakes that we are still feeling the effects of today. But their lives were also stitched together with God in such a way that God Himself considered them heroes.
Those Hebrews 11 people were all commended for their faith pre cross and resurrection. They were in a position of knowing God, loving God and living for Him before the Hope that we now have. They did not have the benefit of the indwelling Christ, the still small ever-present voice, the constant guiding of the Holy Spirit.
King David, the man God Himself called ‘a man after My Own Heart’ had to consult the priests and prophets if he wanted to hear from God… Acts 13:22 (NIV), 1 Samuel 13:14 (NIV)
Now, we have the opportunity to have personal, intimate, one-to-one connection. All the time. If there is something to celebrate, He is already there in the celebration. If there is something to mourn, He is already there in the grief. If there is something that needs fixing, it is His hand that is put to the loom…
Not all of us are called to be Moses, or Marie Curie, or Billy Graham, or Joan of Arc, or Joyce Meyer, or Charles Finney, or the Apostle Paul, or other such well known personage. Some of us may be though! Some of us may be called to be Ms, Mr Neighbourly. Mr, Ms Parents. Mr, Ms Teacher. Ms Electrician. Mr Lawyer. Mr Dog Walker. Ms Gardener. (I could go on all day!) Without exception however, no matter what else we were designed to be, we are all called to be sold-out, knock-down, super-natural lovers of Jesus.
One of the things that I have learned is that the apparent size of your life the way that we, or the world measure it, has absolutely no bearing on the way God measures it. A small piece of cloth, intricately hand woven and then hand stitched, often turns out to be far more valuable in the end than two thousand metres of bright yellow ‘homespun’ woven on a machine.
God Bless You Very Much
Anita