My quilt project

It is always best to do right the first time. If you don’t, then when you finally make up your mind to it, what you find is that you still have the same amount of work you would have had before, when you were too lazy or fearful or hung up to do it—plus the added challenge that unavoidably comes with the lapsed time and squandered opportunity.

This is why, in spite of the fact that there is forgiveness and grace for sinners, God says, in loving warning:

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2, ESV)

Years after prime opportunity, I decided to make a photo album for my daughter of the 12 quilts in 12 years she made with an angel of mercy named Misty Wagner. I needed photos.

What do you do when you have blown things royally and the artworks are scattered hither and yon? Here is what: You get creative, you brainstorm, you humble yourself, you make apologies, you stalk. First you sit down with pen and paper and wrack your brain for a list of people.

One quilt went to the mother of her friend, just two houses down. In the years that we were 30 steps from threshold to threshold, I could have approached Lori hundreds of times. In March a large moving van appeared outside her door and my heart sank. Like the panicked five foolish virgins, I instantly overcame shyness and begged to take a photo of the quilt before she moved. Alas, it was packed. I phoned her yesterday and asked if I might drive to her new house (one hour away), and that’s what I will do; we have a date. Plan B, but that’s what slow learners must do.

Rhoda (another quilt recipient, another mother of a school friend) gave me time out of her busy schedule last year. I snapped lots of poses—the quilt alone, the quilt and Rhoda, the quilt folded over a chair—and weeks later, in a split-second of techno-klutziness, I deleted years of my cell phone gallery, including Rhoda and photos of my mother. Now I must eat crow—but I will get those pictures.

Nzinga is the possessor of a quilt but no longer close to Aimee. I met Zing on the street two years ago and she was gracious and I should have jumped then but foolishly put it off. She seems to have moved too. Now I am in the position of trying all the modern privacy-invasive means at our 21st century disposal to locate the girl, so far without success.

Brothers and sisters, whether in quilt albums or in life, I have noticed that it is always best to do right when the fair winds of opportunity blow. Doing right after moral failure is always harder. And yet I prefer to look at things more positively—that given a choice of lament and despair on the one hand, and hope and renewed zeal on the other, it is far, far better to choose life than death, no matter what the time is.