“Material” A MOTHERS DAY THOUGHT
“Peter made them all leave the room. Then he got down on his knees and prayed. He turned to her body and said, “Tabitha, get up!” She opened her eyes and looked at Peter and sat up. He took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then he called in the faithful followers and the women whose husbands had died. He gave her to them, a living person.” Acts 9:40
My childhood memories were lived in Texas full of adventures in woods, rushing streams and even walks to my school greeting horses. But my fondest memories were the frequent road trips to Gainesville, Texas where my grandmother, a widow lived. Her house took on the noise of the busy street and the railroad nearby but the home cooked meals, the outside screened porch where we slept all made up for it. My grandmother made a meager living sewing and one of the joys of being there was going through boxes of scrap material or finding the many quilt squares of varied designs. My mother took up the same gifting and made many of my sister and I clothing. To this day I have one of my grandmothers special quilts she made.
The book of Acts portrays the same women sewing for the good of others. Her name was Dorcas who was a widow and the scripture isn’t clear on how she died only in the fact that widows gathered around her as she lay lifeless and the news eventually got to the Apostle Peter. They showed Peter her material and what she did with it. I am not sure on how long she suffered with her illness-did she die quickly or did the dream within her die first? Was she shut down during her illness that made her silent? Whatever the case was, Peter traveled from another town and found her upstairs lifeless with her material laying all around her. There was garments yet to be made, dreams yet to be birthed and Peter was there to bring resurrection to all that fell silent within her. She wasn’t a preacher, nor married to one, she preformed no miracles that we know of but she used those scraps of material to change lives. Peter prayed for her and told her to get up and she did and that is where the story begins again with others giving glory to God. I believe she found more scraps to use! Maybe she started a whole society with widows from all over pulling all the their pieces together and garments were made for the poor! Something tells me the more she used gods material the more her strength came back! Dorcas inspires us to re-frame how we see ourselves and the impact we can have on our city no matter how insufficient we feel or shut down we become. Reach for that box of scraps and you just might feel a fresh wind blow within you!
Oh I forgot to mention my grandmothers name was Jewel.