Thankfulness, and a Quilt

On Thanksgiving Day in November, I posted the following picture. Because it was appropriate to the holiday, and because it said what I wanted to say, I posted it without making it into one of my usual wordy blog posts.

But, there's a story behind the picture, and I'd like to share it. 

I've had these great fabrics around for a while - some purchased new, and some from my collection of fabric-from-thrift-store-shirts. 

On the Monday before Thanksgiving Day, I found out what these fabrics were for. 

A very dear friend of mine had a heart attack that week. Right away, I was struck by the need to do something. We couldn't visit right then - she was in intensive care. She and her family were being well-taken-care-of, and there wasn't much I could do, except pray. But I wanted to somehow put hopes for a quick recovery into something tangible. I wanted to "put feet to my prayers", if you will.  

Making a quilt seemed to be the thing to do. As I was looking for some cheery fabric to sew with, I remembered the yellow-gold remnant I had bought recently ... 

... with all sorts of "thankful" phrases on it. This was just the thing, since it was Thanksgiving week. And it was just right, since I was thankful that my friend survived a very dangerous heart attack. Thankful that her family still has her around. Thankful that God is good, even though I couldn't predict what the week would hold for her, or for her heart's health.

And, even though this fabric was just right to make a quilt, I wanted the quilt to have a more complete message. Hence the letters! The "who" and the "why" of our thankfulness comes out in the verse I included in the quilt:

Did you know that these exact words show up in at least 6 separate verses in the Bible? (That's why there's no verse-reference to accompany the verse.) I'm thinkin' God thought it was super-important for us to remember this, since He put it in there so many times. We give thanks to the Lord, and we give thanks because He is good.

As I worked on this quilt, the word "for" struck me: "O give thanks unto the Lord; for ..." 

... For what? Why do I give thanks? And, do I give thanks only for the good things? The things I like? Would I, and could I, continue to be thankful, even if my friend didn't make it home from the hospital? I know well that things don't always turn out the way we'd choose. Making this quilt was a great reminder to me: I give thanks to the Lord - because He is good. 

Yes, we give thanks to God for our family and our friends and our health and our "stuff". But, bottom line, even without that, we give thanks because He is good.

I'm happy to report that my friend was home in time to share Thanksgiving dinner with her family, and she's getting good reports from her doctors.

And I'm also glad for God's gentle reminder that there's more to gratefulness than just a generic "thankful" feeling. There's more to being thankful than just telling God, "Thanks for the stuff!" There's a deeper reason to be thankful: the character of God. God is good.

The picture above is the backing of the quilt, and the picture below shows a view of the free-motion quilting, from the front.

I turned the backing around to the front for the binding. I love the stripes and the fall colors, and even though I almost never sew with this much yellow, it works in this quilt.

The quilt turned out to be a nice couch-size quilt ... 

What are you thankful for today? I'm thankful, because God is good. I'm thankful that Jesus saved me from my sins, so that I can know this good God. I'm thankful for friends and family and health and an abundance of blessings that I don't deserve.

O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good ...

I finished this quilt just a few days after I started it, which is a rare thing. But I'm just now blogging about it, because I wanted to take the time to tell this quilt's story, when blogging about it, since it's not just-another-quilt-finish.

I'll be linking this post to this week's Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilt's blog.