What did I get myself into!

It was time again to find a formal dress for one of my concerts. The problem is, when you start dress shopping you realize that most stores out there have no concept of modesty...agh!! If you do find something, they are asking several hundred dollars for it. I guess because these other dresses have so little fabric they don't have to charge much for them...a little rant and rave of mine! Anyway, I was getting so frustrated knowing that I don't have several hundred dollars to spend on a dress nor am I willing to back down on the convictions that the Lord has given simply to save some money and time. So it was decided: my mom and I would make the dress. We went to Joann Fabrics and I found a beautiful pattern and some of the prettiest purple satin (all on sale I might add). We bought everything for a grand total of $32.48 and took it home to start this long gone art of sewing your own clothes. Everything was going so well...I had gotten the pattern pieces cut out. We looked at the pattern again, as we kept doing many times to make sure we were doing things right, when we noticed the print that was so small on the bottom of the pattern that you almost needed a magnifying glass to read..."For Stretch Fabrics Only." My mom and I just sat there and looked at each other. We had just cut everything out IN SATIN, which by the way has no stretch to it at all. How was I going to get this dress on when there was no zipper, buttons or anything to give me extra room to get in. Then the brilliant idea came to us...let's put a zipper in. I'm sure we can squeeze one in somewhere. It shouldn't be too hard. Haha..Right! Well off we were to try and get this new found zipper idea and this dress to work. We took the first seam and realized that sewing this thing wasn't going to be all this simple. If you have ever worked with satin you know that it snags and doesn't like to stay together when sewing cause it so slick. It was really going to take forever know since I was having to go so slow to make sure everything was matching and not slipping apart. Slow and Steady, Steady and Slow seemed to be the motto here. But it finally started coming together. A few times we had to take several seems out when we realized we sewed the wrong thing or didn't cut one of the pieces big enough (ahem! maybe I was bigger than I thought :) Either way, now we were down to the last thing...the dreaded zipper. It took us almost two hours to get that stupid little thing in there. And then I sewed the fabric to close to the zipper that zipping and unzipping literally took almost five minutes cause we had to make sure I didn't snag any of the fabric in it. I told my mom, 'that's ok, I'll only have to wear it once and I can manage a five minute zipper.' I put it on one last time to make sure everything fit and then the zipper got stuck! AGH!!! What else can go wrong with this dress. I had the dress half-way zipped and then the zipper wouldn't go any further up nor down. All I could think about was what had I gotten myself into, now I'm not going to be able to get myself out of this dress. But with some coaxing and a lot of prayer my mom was able to get the zipper undone! The only thing left to do was to put it on the next night for my concert. I put the dress on and it felt like Deja Vu all over again! The zipper got stuck. But like the night before with a lot of coaxing and prayer the zipper finally zipped all the way. I was so proud of this dress my mother and I had made! Who cares if it took us three weeks to make! I was so thankful to have a modest dress to wear! And I received lots of compliments. Maybe I'll have to try making another dress one again, only this time with the right pattern, the right fabric, and no added zippers!

Overheard in an Orchard

Said a robin to a sparrow
I should really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush around and worry so?
Said the sparrow to the robin
Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no Heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me.
~Elizabeth Cheney

I read this and started thinking...So often when I see people in this world, I see them as these two birds saw them: stressed out and worrying about things. Like the sparrow said, they have no Heavenly Father! They have no peace and quiet in their soul. But have you ever thought that when the world looks at us Christians and sees us stressed out and worried about things, that maybe they don't see Christ AT ALL or maybe that he is simply not powerful enough! Oh, we say that we trust in God, and that we know he is there for us, but if we truly did trust HIM, then we shouldn't even have an ounce of stress or worry on our face or in our hearts. I wonder how many people I have turned away from Christ without even knowing, simply because what they saw in me was that I couldn't/wouldn't trust HIM fully!