Tuesday, November 17, 2009

For the Love of Chelsea...

One of the things that I love most about being a homemaker is working in the kitchen.
I enjoy my time of preparing meals and baking breads, cookies and cakes.
For me, cooking and baking for my family is not a tedious ordeal it is a true labor of love.

Spending time in the kitchen however can get messy with spattered sauces, puffs of flour, sticky dough and spilt milk.
It’s not a strange site to find me covered in the evidence of my love of kitchen work. It’s for this reason that I am a huge fan of aprons.
I love the way they cover and protect you, the way they look and depending on the fabric the way they feel.
During the later part of the summer I went on an apron making binge.
I made aprons for myself, my daughters and sitting right here next to me is a pile of fabric and towels waiting to be made into more aprons.

One day I was talking to my youngest daughter Chelsea about aprons and how they cover us. I found myself relating it to the Love of the Father. I shared with her that God’s covering or banner over us is love; Song of Solomon 2:4.
The banner or the standard the Father has raised and called to cover us is love; He has draped, covered and bathed us in His love because He IS love; 1 John 4:16
His heart and intentions towards us are rooted and grounded in love. It was love, pure unadulterated, unselfish love that allowed Him to wrap Himself in frail humanity to be born of a virgin and die on a cross that we might live again. It’s because of His love, his endearing love that covers us that we are able to love.

As our conversation went on we also talked about aprons being very much
like 1 Peter 4:8 - covering a multitude of sins.
For those of you who cook, you know that when you first take on cooking it’s only natural to make a certain amount of messes. If any of you started off like me you found that you really needed a lot of love (and grace) during that time to cover all the multitudes of wrongs you created under the guise of cooking.
As you grow and mature in your kitchen skills the mishaps diminish, however they can and do happen from time to time. For myself, they usually come about when I am rushing, not paying full attention, and properly reading instructions or when I get to the place of thinking I know this, I’ve mastered it so I can just whip through it easy, breezy. Just as sure as I get to that lofty way of thinking, I find myself covered in the work of my hands.

This is actually like my walk with the Lord, when I find myself rushing through my day, week and life in general, not taking time to pay attention to His voice. When I become to busy trying to serve Him that I don’t take time to read His instructions, when I think I’ve arrived, that I “have this”, I know it, I’ve mastered this thing called Christianity, that is when I find I fall the hardest.

When we make splatters and messes in the kitchen we don’t stop baking or cooking, we clean them up and next time put on our aprons.
We learn to take protective measures to cover ourselves so that our garments are not spotted and blemished. We also learn to slow down and take our time.

The same goes for our walks with the Lord, when we fall short of the glory of God we don’t walk away from salvation and all that the Lord has done for us. Our mess ups don’t disqualify us from the race, but rather we learn from our falls, we repent and make it right. We accept the covering of God’s love and grace and strive to move forward pressing towards the mark. The Father has covered us with robes of righteousness, they are our true garments, just as we learn to take protective measures in the natural to protect our garments we do so in the spiritual as well. We lay aside every weight and sin that so easily besets us.
We guard (keep and preserve) our hearts with all diligence and we put on the whole amour of God. We also make sure we spend time listening and paying attention to His voice and looking to the Word of God to obtain instruction. When we reach out and stand under His banner of love that covers us we find our falls to be fewer and farther between.

As we wrapped up our talk my daughter said Mom, I think you should have a give away on your blog to give away an apron.
Why an apron? Because as we just read, Aprons represent love and it is our hearts desire to give love at every opportunity possible.
So for the love of my daughter Chelsea – and our mutual love of the Lord we are happy to announce that we are giving away 2 aprons.
We will be choosing 2 readers one week from today to bless with an apron.

Each apron will be made just for you and covered in love. We will pray over each apron as we make it. Now I will tell you, I love to sew but am far from a seamstress. (smile)
To find an amazing seamstress you will need to visit my beautiful cousin Sandra’s blog over at Love Abounds at Home.
So with that being said there may be an off stitch or two but we know that love covers a multitude of errors right? (smile)

We will put all of the names in a container and Chelsea will draw the names. We will post pictures of the drawing process as well as the names drawn.
Entering to win is very simple. You don’t have to subscribe or follow – if you want to do so you are more than welcome and we would love to have you but it is not a requirement.
Simply send us an email at TonyR@wellwateredwoman.com with Apron Give Away in the subject line.
You can also post a comment letting us know you entered just in case we don’t get your email.

Until next time


Prov. 4:23
Ephesians 6:11,
Hebrews 12:1
Isaiah 61:10,

6 comments:

Andrea said...

Tony,
This is a powerful post. Indeed we must clean up our messes. GOD BLESS you!
andrea

Unknown said...

Tony, I love this! Thank you for such a powerful message.

Love Abounds At Home said...

I see aprons in a whole new way now! Wow! That was powerful.
I had a baking party with the young women from church tonight. I made them aprons. I wished you could have seen their faces. They were so happy. One young lady squealed with excitement because it was her first apron.
Another said that I must really love her. I don't really know her that well, but after reading this post, I can see why she said that.

Precious Gems said...

Happy Thanksgiving and may God bless you abundantly :)

Mary Moss said...

Tony, what a wonderful analogy! As one who loves to cook and bake--and recently just came across an apron I had inadvertently stashed away somewhere--I love your comparison of an apron to God's love and protection!

I will be reminded of this post every time I wear that apron from here on out!

Blessings!

Mary Moss said...

What a wonderful post! I also love to cook - though I don't have much opportunity these days! I recently came across an apron I had inadvertently stashed away and now every time I put it on, I will think of this post -- and God's love, which covers a multitude of sins:-)

Blessings!