Heaven's Mending Basket

      I looked in surprise at my bedspread, needle and thread in hand. I knew it was coming apart, but not quite that much! :| The ever so small section of a separating seam no longer was. All the more reason to mend it, I mused. 

      Mending is a task that proffers ample opportunity to think, and as duty called to the former, I settled in to do some of the latter. 

      First of all, I knew the condition of my bedspread. It had had a hole. Yet this knowledge was not sufficient stimulus for correcting said deficiency right away. So finally, priority has uncovered it. How often do I wait for a more convenient season to attend to a hole in the soul? How often do I brush aside the knowledge of my flaws with the self-assurance that it will be okay for today? ...that it is "good enough"?

      Secondly, I did not know the condition of my bedspread. The true state of its disrepair might as well have been a mystery. What's startling about this is that the hole was right under my nose. Literally. Top blanket, middle section, as plain as stain. Getting worse all the time, but yours truly was in complete oblivion. Let me just say that naturally, I am conscious of such things... all the more reason this comes home. "Because thous sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; (my blanket is practically fine, really!) and knowest not that thou art wretched” (your blanket really is not fine). - Revelation 3:17. The holes may be unknown or ignored, but that by no means alters the reality of their presence, or the progression of disintegration. 

      Lastly, I know the condition of my bedspread is better than it used to be. It had had a hole, but no more. “…He which hath begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” - Philippians 1:6. There is a solution to the pollution of a soul. We don’t have to remain in stained, hole-ridden garment. There is a robe to be had of one piece, purest white, no cuts, no stains. But we have to buy it. There is a price. It is costly. Obedience, not ours, but Another’s obedience, molded out of our life. The Amen, the beginning of the creation of God, the first and the last, the I AM, He, humbled Himself; the One who was, and is, and is to come, He, “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” - Philippians 2:8. … so that He could give us a garment without holes… a character that won’t fray… an obedience above compromise.  Amazing doesn’t begin to tell it.

      Well, the stitchery is done, but the character is still in the making. In the mean time however, praise God for heaven's mending basket! :)