June 23: STITCH OF ENDURANCE

Galatians 6:

Theme: Sewing Faithfulness into Your Life

 My childhood memories of my mother’s sewing machine, with its unique rhythmic clicking and whirring sound as the needle moved back and forth, have always stirred important recollections of times in my upbringing that have helped to shape my character.

Mommy’s machine usually had a slight vibration as the sound got louder whenever she was working faster.  The steady sound of the old motor blending with the sound of the needle had always been a symbol of endurance and faith for me.  The sound has always reminded me of the great potential and opportunities that lay in my mother's hands, who I believe is the best dressmaker alive today.  In short, my mommy is the full embodiment of the phrase the stitches of endurance.  I grew up literally under the sewing machine.  My mommy would often look for me, and I would be found sitting or playing at her feet, right on the sewing machine pedal.  In fact, if we had never had a sewing machine, I would not have turned out to be the person I am today. 

The stitches of endurance that mommy made, day after day, night after night, sent me to school from I was 2 years 7 months until I was 15 years old when I graduated from High School; I thought the stitches were over at age 15. When I received my exam grades, they did not look good. Mommy was not pleased at all and gave me the “talk”.  “Carla,” she said. “I have endured so many stitches in life just so that you could come out to be a better person. However, your choices about school and study were not good, and now you must reap the consequences.” Believe it or not, a few weeks after the talk, I found myself in the Free Zone Garment Factory stitching inseams on jeans pants. The first set of stitches of endurance and faith had now been sown in the fabric of my life.

 Approximately three years later, I was still working at the Free Zone garment factory, but during this time, I had completed evening classes and had gained better grades. I started to look for work outside of the Free Zone Garment Factory and was successful at being hired as an accounting clerk at an accounting company in Kingston and then in Spanish Town. During this time, I was pulled closer to God and started to experience His faithfulness even more. My daily stitches (choices) of endurance and faithfulness resulted in real garments of appreciation for my mommy, as I acknowledged the sacrifices that she made over the years for me.

 Galatians 6:9 reinforces that we should not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up, and my Mom did just that.  My life desires to continue the legacy she has sewn for me so that others looking on will see and appreciate the imprint of God’s stitches of endurance and faithfulness displayed in my life.

Ladies, let us continue to sew garments after garments throughout our lives, whether they be as small as a handkerchief or as large as a spread or comforter. I pray and hope that each garments would be sewn with endurance and will display our measure of faithfulness into each other’s lives.

 Lord, please help us as women recognize that every day, we are around the machine of faith. I pray, Father, that we may thread our machines carefully and correctly so that whatever garments we sew can be worn with love, having been embroidered through endurance and faith in Jesus’ name. Amen.