This weekend I received a very thoughtful gift from my in-laws…a Singer sewing machine. I’ve always liked sewing, my mom is an accomplished seamstress and taught me how. Though I have the basics down, I can only hope to aspire to her needle-and-thread talent. I didn’t realize what a substantial part my mother played in my past sewing endevors until today. Excited about my first project on my very own machine I set out to the fabric store as soon as I was off from work. It wasn’t long before I had my pattern and fabric selected and optomisitcly made my purchase. After dinner tonight I set up the machine to begin my project. This is when the problems began… It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was mistaken in my size selection, instead of a “4″ I had bought a “14″. I didn’t have any pins, thread, tailor paper, and I couldn’t seem to remember what in the world “interfacing” was. Several frustrating hours and a phone call to my mom later, it is all clear what I need to get to be able to sew on my own. So when I get a chance to go back to JoAnn’s I will be able to make another attempt at my project…hopefully this time I’ll succeed!

This week the forcast is rain, and lots of it. The weather man was right and it poured all day. I thought we had a lot of water all around, so it is difficult to imagine the Tsunamis in Asia today. I watched a video feed from a news website and was shocked to see how quickly the waves completely cover the land, cars and buildings. There was this fascinating section about how a Tsunami is formed by an earthquake out at deep sea, pushing huge amounts of water onto land in mere minutes…kind of like the tide coming in, but much much worse. Though this is geographically interesting, it is sad that over 30, 000 people lost their lives due to the monster waves. I thought about the account in Mark 4 where Jesus calms the storm. It says, “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.” Jesus stands up and rebukes the sea saying, “Peace! Be still!” Immediately the winds and waves are calmed by His voice. We are much too familiar with this account. Though we have trivialized it to a flannelgraph story, this amazing event really happened. A furious squall came up and when the Creator gave it an order, it obeyed. He was in control of the storm then and I know that He is sovereign over the Tsunamis today. Our weather and the ocean waves change…my plans for today sure changed!… but God never changes (Malachi 3:6, “For I am the Lord, I do not change.”) I was reading about God’s changeless sovereignty in Ecclesiastes 3, it says that God does whatever He pleases and we cannot understand it. God’s mind is too big for us, His plan too great for our comprehension. I will never fully discern all of God’s works, but Solomon says, “God does it, that men should fear before Him.“(v.14) This whole day I have been reminded that I am so small, pitiful and inadequate. Acknowledging this reality drives me to reverence and worship of Jesus my Lord, may all that lives sing His praise!