Women of Strength - Day Three

My journal is nearly full, which I began in January. I try to write daily, recording the weather, the day's events, my feelings, letters to God and His responses, scripture etc. Often the answers I am searching for come through this discipline.
 I didn't feel like writing this morning, but sensed a gentle prompting. My words seemed stilted, disorganized, pointless, but after I had them on the page a picture formed in my mind.

Mending.

Sewing.

Tiny stitches holding together heavy quilts.

I'd heard that word before. To mend with stitches.

Picking up my Bible, I flipped through the pages until I found the passage I was looking for. In Hebrews 13, we are told that our Shepherd equips us. Isn't that a strange combination? You would think equipping would be paired with a teacher, a commander, a leader.
I had noted Beth Moore's teaching on the word "equip." In the original Greek it means to prepare or repair. The root word means to mend by stitching i.e. as the disciples mended their nets.

Sewing can be a tedious job, leaving our hands sore with pinpricks and our eyes tired after many hours of working with tiny stitches.

Becoming a woman of strength can be the same - day in and day out, performing the menial tasks necessary for our families' lives to hold together. The work is ordinary, seemingly insignificant, mundane in itself. Women can be worn out, overwhelmed, sore from all the constant pinpricks of life.

It is in these very places we turn to our Shepherd who cares about the slightest detail of your lives and we see the needle in His hand. He is all the time repairing emotions, mending hearts, using various colors, no two the same.

Remember the illustration of the cross stitch. If you look at the bottom side, you see a tangled mass of threads and knots. Only when it is turned over does the gorgeous pattern make sense of it all.

God sees the pattern, even when we don't. He knows which stitches to tear out and how to mend the broken places.
His handiwork holds.
And we become women of strength.