Don’t Give Up!

This precious, quiet, unassuming, yet amazingly talented woman is representative of what God does when it seems all hope is gone. A couple of years ago, her husband of 40+ years passed away after a long battle of cancer. As if that weren’t enough to cause her to go the way of depression, sadness, mourning and dismay, just a couple of months later, her home in Mannford, OK burned to the ground, leaving her homeless, her quilting business destroyed and certain desire to give up.

What DOES someone do at times like that? Quit? Throw in the towel and be done with it all? Go to a place of retreat and hope that it’s just a bad dream? Not on your life. This gal, Freda Gordon, did what I saw on a sign in her home yesterday. She turned the mess to a message, the test into a testimony, the trial into a triumph, and rather than being a victim…..she became a victor.

I took these photos at her home a couple of days ago. They are of this warrior woman who, not only started over from scratch, but was able to have her new home built, and now her quilting business is booming again. She has risen from the ashes and, if you could just know her, you’d see how she has replaced her garments of heaviness for garments of praise, joy and determination. She opened her quilt closet, and I saw many, many beautiful, handmade pieces of art that she handcrafted.

Doesn’t that make us believe…..that whatever we’re going through today — that it’s just temporary? Let’s don’t give up. Let’s don’t give in. Our mess, too, will be our testimony…..and our defining moment of the storm turning into a magnificent rainbow!