My grandmother, Mama Katie, spent her entire adult life on one mission – covering those she loved.
Looking back on her 98 years of living, most people would not see the profound nature of that ministry. After all, she simply made quilts. What’s the big deal with that? Lots of women from that generation did the same thing.
Well, first of all, what they did was much more than simply “make a quilt.” Theirs was an art form that has almost been lost to our modern world. It was a long, tedious, painstaking process which took hours and hours to perform. And quilting was often done by the light of a coal oil lamp, long after their other daily chores and tasks of mothering, farming, cooking, and cleaning for a large family – all with little to no money.
My grandmother and almost every woman she knew saved every scrap of material possible from old clothes and even flour or feed sacks. They cut these discarded items into small pieces and stitched them together to make quilt tops. Then, they saved dimes and nickels to buy material to form the back of their quilts, with a layer of soft, warm batting in between the top and its back. Meanwhile, many of these women helped their husbands to plant, hoe, harvest, and card the very cotton within those quilts.
Those quilts gave them assurance that their children would not grow cold on long, icy nights. Remember! They did not have the benefit of electricity to heat their homes, or even fireplaces and heaters in every bedroom. And my grandparents lived in what we term “shotgun houses,” just like most sharecroppers of their day and time.
So, yes, quilts were a big deal. A very big deal.
But even beyond the physical necessity of quilts, they were an added source of beauty in the hard-scrabble lives of women such as my grandmother. Accordingly, women took pride in their craft of quilting. They designed intricate patterns, and they used the colors of the various fabrics to create designs within the quilts.
In essence, they made something absolutely beautiful from nothing but discarded scraps of material. And those women did the same thing each and every day in their lives and the lives of their families. They made something beautiful out of nothing.
Isn’t that kind of what God does for us?
He takes the absolute darkest sinner, and through the power of His loving grace and mercy, He washes us white as snow. No matter what we’ve done or what we failed to do, His forgiveness washes it all away and gives us a brand-new start.
And even better than that – He forgives and forgets. He literally looks at us as brand-new creations in Christ. Literally, His love covers a multitude of our sins.
Ironically, my grandmother, the consummate quiltmaker, loved that portion of scripture from 1 Peter 4:8 more than any other. And let me assure you, Mama Katie Arlene Cox Wilson repeated those words often.
In a dry, monotone, matter-of-fact voice, she would say it with her hands on her hips while looking directly at the hearer (Alright, I confess. The hearer was usually me) as if to add that I should have already been heeding her and God’s words – for a long, long time.
In case I did not hear those words enough in my lifetime, my kind, gentle, and ever-obedient sister has chosen this same verse as her absolute all-time favorite. And she quotes it almost as often as Mama Katie did, though much more patiently and lovingly than our grandmother.
Even so, I hear it often. But the funny thing is, I now quote it myself – more and more, all the time. I think it’s because, more and more, I see the lasting impact on others from our words and deeds. And more and more, I realize that saying all the right words accounts for nothing if our hearts are not filled with the love of God.
For example, I recently sat and listened as a couple of friends discussed another friend. It usually takes a lot to shock me, but what I heard broke my heart. In retrospect, nothing that was said was really untrue, but it was unnecessary and hurtful. The person in question needed Christ-centered encouragement and help, not holier-than-thou criticism.
Afterword, I reminded myself that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV).
My gossiping friends were not the issue; neither was my other friend who was the object of the gossip. The issue always has been and always will be our sinful nature.
I also reminded myself that gossip and backbiting have been my sins of choice on many occasions. This time, I just saw and felt the pain of those words more deeply than ever before.
Plus, it just hit harder because this round of gossip and backbiting came from strong, professing Christian friends. Again, I had to remind myself (especially here in the South) that even though we couch our gossip as “concerns or even prayer concerns,” there is no such thing as holy gossip. It is still flat-out, plain-and-simple gossip and backbiting.
And the Bible calls those and other tale-toting actions sin. In fact, the book of Proverbs is rife with examples of the sins of gossip and backbiting. My favorite Scripture on these topics is even more blunt than my Mama Katie, “Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth (Proverbs 26:20, KJV).
So, I am learning more and more, day by day, that when people start talking about others, all I need to do is simply take my wood out of the proverbial gossip fire.
Am I perfect at it?
No, it’s a process, a lifelong process of learning. But I intend to get better and better at the process of not adding fuel to the fire of hurtful words and deeds.
Honestly, I just want to be like my grandmother and be in the “covering ministry.”
Of course, I may not be able to craft an exquisite heirloom quilt, but I can make sure to cover those I love with the love of God – the kind of love that covers a multitude of sins.
And most of all, I must take care to never uncover those He has covered.
