Secured

I don't do much sewing anymore, but I grew up making my own clothes. My dear Mom was a talented seamstress and taught us well. It was in the era of gathered skirts, and I remember that once the three lines of basting stitch had been sewn, we carefully pulled them, gathering the full skirt and finally securing it, wound round a pin until we sewed it down securely.

I've been busy here, handling a variety of different threads of Mom's life and trying to make sense out of sometimes tangled situations. Today I am packing and starting my return home, feeling sad to know Mom feels safe and secure when I am here, and anxious when I go. I am praying that the threads which I have pulled into place are securely sewn down now, and that Mom will recognise that she is safe.

Jesus must have felt that he was torn from all that he was working on, when he was nailed to the cross. But he came back, he rose, and he spent time securing the threads. He walked the road to Emmaus and explained things; he appeared in the upper room; he spoke with the women and the men, the crowds and those on their own. What he had gathered, he secured.

We are safely secured in Jesus, the perfect craftsman. Mom is safely secured in him, and as I reluctantly hug and hold her and then leave, I give her to him in trust, knowing he is faithful, and he never lets us down. Even though it is hard.