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The Fray, 02Jun

I often wonder why we can be blessed to be born and continue to live above the fray of hardships of poverty, unrest, physical pain (for now, thanks Lord for the hedge of protection). It’s not that I worked hard at these, except I have been taught to know to work to keep myself and my family to stay away from the fray.

We are blessed, always, no matter our circumstances.

Sheltered or hiding from world problems? We do have that ability, to block out the world, to find solitary isolated places, especially by shutting off the news. But how much should we go solve the world problems? How much are we supposed to venture out or hunker down? There is only one source of solution that works, WORK for THE LORD. And no matter safe or scared, isolated or inundated, we still must work for the Lord and tell of His Good News.

Right now, do we make do with a new view or make anew a mission, old or new? I sort thru these dilemmas in my head.  When I taught vacation bible school,  my thoughts were that my job was to equip the next generation with the seeds of knowledge of Jesus and His mission. No VBS this year – yet. So, as ever, my writings may have pulled me closer into peace by settling me down. But why continue writing and sharing, in this 51^st chapter?  I’m pretty sure that even if I don’t see the impact,  someday somehow God will use the fact that I wrote – was forced to write – and wanted to share. His sharing is beyond my understanding. I’m not the first writer – it is just that I am just the curator of His peace within me.

What about entering the fray? Even my worry about losing the cat sometimes blocks my path from leaving the house, or causes me to figure out how to sneak out the back door. Maybe I’m not supposed to cut off the fray but sew it together so it is not unruly and make the fabric potentially lost. The fray of fabric can be overstitched by my serger sewing machine, so perhaps the life fray fears and foibles are the same. The Lord saves me from my own human fray. Yes, the Lord stitches the world’s people into His love, He makes the fray manageable for another day. He overlocks the loose ends of people’s lives with His love. The serger overlock machine will cut off the fabric edges off with a sharp knife. We too must be willing to cut back some of our excess living while being secured by the Lord into His giant patchwork quilt project He calls earth. Sew two pieces of lives together and you have doubled the expanse of the width of the fabric. Stitch out to share the Word of God and watch Him sew His quilt bigger and bigger. Our Father, the Vinedresser, will prune us to bear more fruit. (John 15)

The Word will spread. We are to partition our lifestyles into usefulness that is uniquely gifted to us to do our part. The fruit we are given is for sharing. He will equip us and bless us.

It’s the Lord who keeps us close to Him, thankfully.  Impact is His. He makes stepping stones of opening opportunities… I will never know which opportunities were mine to miss. I best to mine the opportunities to make the most of my life. For Him. For Him.  He is the goldmine of purpose.

Someday I will reach into the fray more. And remind the world who will reach out too.

Pray for the fray.

Pray for those who reduce the fray, every day it needs tucking together into peace.

Pray for realization that we need our future. GOD NEEDS US TO CONTINUE.

Keep working for the Lord. Every big and little stitch.

Amen