The quilt has been on the frame in that front room since the January before last and Peggy finished it on a Tuesday in October with four people watching who had not been invited to watch.
It is for her granddaughter and it is the ninth she has made and it is, by common agreement in that family, the best one.
The thing this article is about is not the quilt.
It is the blanket that has been on the back of the sofa for eleven years.
That blanket is not one of Peggy's. It is a thing she made in about nine days in a bad autumn, out of two sweaters that had gone at the elbow and a piece of curtain, and it is the only thing she has ever made that she would call ugly.
She made it because the heating was off that autumn for reasons she does not discuss, and because a house gets cold at four in the afternoon in November, and because you cover what needs covering with what you have got.
It is still there. Eleven years. Nobody has ever suggested taking it away and nobody ever would.
And in the second week of October last year, with the ninth quilt finished and off the frame, her daughter in law did something that Peggy did not see coming.
She folded the ninth quilt, which was for the granddaughter, and put it on the back of the sofa, and picked up the eleven year old blanket and folded it and put it in Peggy's own hands.
She said: "That one is yours to keep. This one is for you to be under."
Peggy said the thing she has said several times since, which is that in eleven years it had genuinely not occurred to her that the thing she had made in a bad autumn was not the best that was available to her.
She had made a covering. It worked. And working had made it invisible.
You may have one too. Whatever you stitched together in a bad autumn out of what was in the drawer, it is probably still doing its job, and the fact that it works is exactly why nobody has looked at it, including you. And nobody has ever told you what the first thing God ever made for people actually was.
The First Thing He Made For People Was Clothing
There is a verse at the end of the third chapter of Genesis that people read past on their way to something else, and it is one of the most tender things in the book.
Before it, two people have already made themselves a covering. That is in the text. They took what was to hand and they sewed it together and they made themselves aprons, and it was theirs and it was homemade and it was, in its way, entirely reasonable.
And then this.
"Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them."Genesis 3:21
Did make. And clothed them.
Two verbs and both of them are His. He made the thing, and then He put it on them, and neither of those is a comment on the aprons.
You have been clothed by Somebody rather than left to your own stitching. Genesis 3 has God making the covering and putting it on before anybody asks, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a verse everybody reads past and lays it over a blanket on the back of a sofa.
And notice where it sits. This is the worst chapter in the book. Everything has just gone wrong and the consequences have just been spelled out in detail. And in the middle of that, before anybody leaves, God does a piece of practical tailoring.
The first recorded thing God makes for human beings, after the world itself, is something to wear.
You were covered properly at the exact point where the homemade version was all there was. That is what the written word does at the end of its worst chapter, and it is the Spirit of God who makes two verbs land in a woman holding an eleven year old blanket.
Nothing Is Being Taken Off You Here
Now be careful, because this article could be read as a criticism of the aprons and that is not in the text and it is not on this page.
Nobody is saying the thing you made was foolish. It was what was available and it worked and it got you through a winter, and Peggy's blanket is still in that house and always will be.
The point is not that your covering was bad. It is that it was not the only one, and that a better one was made by Somebody else and was never withheld and has been available the whole time.
And say the guard, because this is the landing category and it is the whole guarantee of this site. Nothing here asks you for anything. No figure, no proportion, no percentage, no practice, no schedule, no next step, and nothing routed to any person, cause, church or work anywhere at all, this one included. You will not finish this page holding a debt.
You have not been asked to hand anything over in exchange. It is written that we are clothed with the garments of salvation, which is a passive in which the wearer does none of the work, and His Spirit is the one who has been in that front room through eleven winters.
And you are as fully His under the homemade one as under the good one, because the making and the clothing in Genesis 3 are both His verbs, and the Holy Spirit is the one keeping this page from putting a price on a coat.
Something can be laid over you here, and it costs you nothing at all.
You have been clothed by God rather than left with your own stitching. Scripture has Him make the coats and put them on in the middle of the worst chapter it has, and the Holy Spirit is the one making that read as something folded into your hands rather than as a detail in Genesis.
Two things this is not. It is not the opening of a scheme and there is nothing further down that asks for the old blanket back. And it is not a judgement on what you made in a bad autumn, because that blanket is still on that sofa and nobody in that house would touch it.
You have been covered by Somebody else's work, and both verbs in that sentence are His. That is written, and His Spirit has been in the room through all eleven winters.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud with something over your knees. The standing to speak to God like this is yours in Christ and was made and put on you rather than assembled by you, Scripture is the ground under it, and the Holy Spirit has been in that room through every winter. What He does next in your circumstances is His to decide, and none of these lines is a lever.
- Covering I stitched myself out of whatever was in the drawer, you were never going to hold through a winter. The word of God says the Lord God made coats of skins and clothed them, and both of the verbs in that sentence belong to Him. I am taking the one that was made for me.
- Habit of not noticing a thing because it works, get off the back of this sofa, because eleven years of doing its job is exactly why nobody has looked at it. In the name of Jesus I put you down folded, since what is written puts a piece of practical tailoring in the middle of the worst chapter in the book. His Spirit has been in this front room through all eleven winters.
- Father, You made the coats Yourself and You put them on before anybody asked for them. Your word says did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them, and Your Spirit is the one who got somebody to fold a quilt and hand me a blanket. You clothed us Yourself, and I am glad to say so out loud.
Genesis 3:21
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