Idle

I made a kimono this week.
A sweet and stylish Jesus-loving friend of mine who has got the cutest little babes in the world posted a picture of herself and some gal pals while wearing this sensational little floral jacket number. In simply having to ask her where she procured it she told me it was indeed a "kimono" not a jacket and went on to mention the store.
Not one much for shopping, I thought "I bet there is a sewing blog that can tell me how to make it" and sure enough, Pinterest led me to the great treasure trove as it has a tendency of doing.
Immediately upon finding the pattern, and I mean immediately, I left the house and zipped off to the closest fabric store. To my elation, I walked in to find sale tables brimming with the kind of fabric I needed! Hurray and Huzzah and Hallelujah! Now to pick which pattern and color! Typically one given to patterns like...black, and colors like....black, I did away with "typical" and decided that I really do probably need more color in my life and settled upon something paisley, 70's-ish, and done up in red tones. I am also not typically one much for red in my clothes either, but I really liked the muted backside of the fabric and decided I would make the thing wrong-side-out. Because I do things like that: make things backwards.

Delightful. $6 worth of soon-to-be-kimono-fabric and utterly delightful.

Zipping back home then I immediately set to work. And I mean immediately.

I love projects. Have I told you that? ;)

Hubbs keeps remarking how I really wasn't lying the whole time we dated when I said "I love projects," and is now always saying to me, "I think it's so neat how you always have a project going..."

Isn't he just the best?! (yes.)

And here is said 70's-ish kimono:

I was talking to another very dear friend the other day, who also has the cutest little babes in the world, and she was asking what I had been up to lately.
"Oh...just the usual, I suppose. Reupholstering chairs; I refinished a couple tables over the last few weeks. I just read this nuts-o book about climbing K2 so now Hubbs and I can't stop watching YouTube documentaries on mountaineering. Let's see, what else....well, I really am getting into this whole bread making thing....um....AND MY PLANTS!! I have started all these seeds so I am tending to them and it's a great joy! Oh, I decided to take some classes, too, and I am working on a couple headpieces and am really enjoying making Asian food lately. And then I just started Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography and this whole book on the brief republic that pirates had in their hey-day......blah blah blah...." I kept rattling.

"Wow, B. That's a lot you have going on," she said.

Well. I suppose.

I was thinking more about what she said a couple days later, about how I have a lot going on, and I thought to myself, "Well, what else would I be doing?! I can't be on Pinterest collecting ideas ALL DAY...."
And then I pondered some more. Much like Winnie the Pooh would ponder....

Why is it that I have so much going on?!

I guess it's because I figure that right now I don't work outside the home. Right now I don't have children. Right now, in 5 Month City, I don't know anyone. Right now there are projects to be had.
And right now this time is fleeting.

I told my friend after she commented on my busyness, "Well, I look at my life with all this open time, and if two years from now I look back and have nothing to show for all this free time, then I pretty much fail at life and being responsible. I mean, I won't ever get this time back. So I better have a whole trove of things to show for it."

And I believe it. Probably never again will I have time like this on my hands with no demands made upon except things like Hubbs and I should probably eat today so I will have to cook at some point.

This all had strolled back and forth through my brain over the course of the last few weeks and then it flared up again when I was immediately making my kimono.

At the juncture of all of these thoughts and things I was in my devotions in I Thessalonians and I came to the verse in chapter 4 that reads: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands just as we told you." (verse 11)

I have had a box drawn around this verse since I was probably 14 years old. Most likely due to my growing up with the Amish (which you now know about) and my burning love of pioneers and all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, I have always thought that quiet lives are better than loud ones. The loud ones pass away, and pass away quickly at that, but things with less pomp and circumstance are better. As Doug Wilson would say about modern trends and policies that have no Biblical glory in themselves, "they are lame, they need everyone to applaud enthusiastically. This is the only way to compensate for being so lame."
My thoughts exactly.
Trendy is lame. And a quiet life that honors the Lord is not trendy.
So the box around this verse remains.

I was thinking about this and thought I should look up the words in the Greek. Because I am a wannabe aspiring philologist like that.

In my study I came across that those people in Thessaloniki were given to idleness because they thought that Jesus was going to come back at the end of the week and they didn't have time to spend on daily life. Basically. So Paul needed to set them aright.

In Greek, then, the definition for this "quiet life" says, "To be still. At rest, not running hither and thither. The manifestation of a quiet, in awe spirit and mind."

WOW!! Isn't that so neat?! So it's not just "not flashy," there is something more to it. It's a life of deep and profound peace. A life that has been quieted by the grace and sovereignty of God, for what else has the power to still?

And then for kicks and giggles I thought, "I wonder what the definition for 'hands' is?"
:)

It reads: "The instrument one uses to accomplish his purposes."



Whoa.

Babies.

This verse says a lot.



While I would like to think that I have always had a good handle on not letting myself be idle with my time (hence my cache of projects to show), this verse begs a couple further questions: Is my life a manifestation of a quiet, in awe spirit and mind?
But, and maybe more telling, does my time have PURPOSE that I am intentionally fulfilling with the work that goes through my hands?

Look at that definition of hands once again:
"The instrument one uses to accomplish his purposes."

Everyone has a purpose for what they do, of this I am convinced.

But do you KNOW yours?

Are you spending your time on purpose? Like, is there a goal you are trekking towards that is determining whether you do one thing with your time or don't do it?
In all your coming and going---or all of your NOT coming and going (if your life is quiet)--- does what you're doing have a meaning? Or is it just lame, too? With no glory, as Wilson would ask (things that do not carry a God-given glory are lame in his thinking.... for if it does not glorify, then what can it be doing?)

When was the last time you took a really good stock of your life? Looked at all your activities and asked "But WHY am I doing this?! WHY am I putting my family through this? WHY are we getting in the car AGAIN???" Is it accomplishing what I want to be accomplished?

Sometimes I go through the day almost mindlessly, I am shamed to admit. I get up, make breakfast, we drink our tea and coffee, I do my quiet time, and then I fill in the space with the current projects before I start into dinner prep.
But do I KNOW WHY I am making that cup of tea? Why I am prepping that dinner? Is there any reason behind it, or do I just do it? Because I think it's what you need to do?

How about you?
Are you running here and there because you think it's what the world wants from you?
Because you are afraid of what the alternative is?

Like silence.

And quiet.

And not being busy.

And having a second to breathe and thank the Lord.

And having a better, and I will go so far as to add, a counter-cultural, reason to make dinner than well-we-have-to-eat-today-sometime. But rather an "I am making dinner to be a good steward of what God has given us and to provide for my family the tangible reminder that Jesus provides for us by giving us this bounty we eat every day." Or "Because some of the greatest human connection happens around a dinner table, with people sharing a common meal....which is sharing a common grace, which is blessing the name of the Lord."

And having a better reason to go to work (because we do all our work as unto the Lord).

And having a better reason to talk to your neighbor (because we believe that we have never met a mere mortal).

And having a better reason to stay home (because the people who live inside your house are your closest "neighbors" you have been commanded to love well).

Are we afraid of all of these things? Thinking maybe we might receive the scorn of a world who does not understand a stilled and quieted heart and life.


I saw this on Pinterest a while back and was struck.

Isn't this so revealing?
Because it's absolutely the truth.


It's a thought, Wolfies.
What are we using our time for?
And what are the purposes we are accomplishing with our hands?

Love you. Happy Sunday.