Saturday, July 12, 2014

And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as a rose...

These words conjure up a lot of emotion for me.

As I was sewing binding on this wedding quilt for a very special couple, a song from scripture from my time living in Israel back in 1984/85 flooded my memory and I found myself singing it.  The scripture reference is from Isaiah 35.  I felt impressed that this was brought to my remembrance because I was to share it with the bride and groom. 

I realized just how appropriate the scripture is for this couple.  The groom lived with us for almost a year and during that time we watched this relationship 'blossom as a rose'.  We are people of faith, lovers of Jesus and believers that God is a God who fulfills promises.  And He sure did for these two!

Justin and Danielle have an amazing love story.  The story is theirs to tell but what I can say is that God truly is a redeemer; He is faithful to care for that which we commit to Him; He is the Giver of good gifts.  The fact that He brought this scripture and song to mind for them brought me to tears.



Here is the history of the song:  When my team was wrapping up our year in Israel living and serving on Kibbutz G'var Am, one of the fellows on our team, David Roberts from the UK, felt impressed that our time in the desert (literal) had been fruitful and had blossomed like a rose.  Our Kibbutz was near the Gaza strip close to a desert area of Israel.   He wrote a melody to accompany this scripture and a beautiful song was born.  It still makes me very emotional to remember my time there...a fruitful time, a time of spiritual growth and deepening of my walk with the Lord.   After our friend and composer had finished creating it, we learned his song and sang it at a meeting before we went back home to our respective countries. And here we are over 25 years later and I'm making a quilt and it comes to mind.  I love how the Lord does that.

Tomorrow we celebrate the union of these two precious people.  I have been honoured to make this quilt for them.  With it goes prayers and blessings for a long and happy life together with many adventures in God, much fruit and an abundance of love.

This is their wedding quilt:


We had a quick little photoshoot this afternoon,  the quilt and me...before it goes to its forever home...





They haven't got the quilt yet so I'm writing this on Saturday but will schedule it to post tomorrow on facebook after the wedding.  They don't follow my blog so I'm safe.  They DO follow facebook though and I don't want to reveal it there until they've seen it.  I'm so excited for the wedding!!  I'll post a picture of them with the quilt soon...as in a couple of days.

A special thank you to Theresa Harbidge, the longarm quilter who quilted the quilt for me in record time to make my deadline!

Until next time,
Mavis