The Family Quilt
In the 17th century, one of the core needs of the first Americans was a quilt. We recognize quilts now as a hobby or craft with elaborate designs and patterns, but just a few hundred years ago they were an absolute need. Quilts were used to cover windows and to keep warm in their off-the-grid homes.
Some writers called quilting, “the art of necessity.” While few people had enough money to discard old clothes and fabric, many early settlers did not. Where an old t-shirt had a hole, a retired baby blanket could be patched together to begin a larger, warmer, and more effective household blanket.
The picture that history gives us is the early women settlers would come together and spend hours making a quilt for one of the specific ladies. This “quilting club” was a way to offer support, learn a new skill, and build community. Making a quilt was not just beneficial for the receiving lady, but for all the ladies that joined since life was more secluded for the pioneers.
Family quilts were the emblem of a family’s entire essence. Not only would you see Grandpa’s shirt and Mom’s cooking apron stitched in, but perhaps you would see the neighbors’ donated fabric.
We look to the family quilt as the blueprint of, not just a biological family- but a Church family. Within the church, we unite in our Christian faith, as everyone grows in their walks with God. A church family exists to support you in hard times and to join in celebration during the good times. Like the settlers leaving their native home, not everyone has the opportunity to have a huge, biological support system. The church is the family quilt that is represented by the fabrics of different lives.
It’s been said many times that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Different people, like a teacher or a coach, can voice ideas and influence a child that would not be readily received when given by a parent.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
When you raise your family on the foundation of the truth with the support of the church, your children will grow, physically and spiritually. We cannot negate the fact that every person has free will. But as a child ages, their lives have been touched by the influences around them. Their Sunday School teacher has donated fabric and it is sown into the identity of that child’s life. Perhaps there is a second father figure in the church that invests time into your children, he offers some of his fabric to your child’s quilt.
The Family Quilt is not only durable and will be there in the difficult and cold times of life, but most importantly, it is sown together with one uniting thread- the faith in Jesus Christ.
