SCRAPS.

As a general rule, I do not sew.  To me, sewing is frustrating, difficult, time consuming and, contrary to what a lot of people believe, expensive.  Plus, when you are all done with whatever you are making, there is always a pile of awkwardly shaped scraps left and it's hard to know what do with them.  Will I use them again?  Should I throw them away? Should I store them in the garage for 5-10 years  so I can use them when I do another sewing project?
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One of my friends often reminds me that God doesn't waste any experience in our lives: our joys, our trials, our boredom, our sin.  He uses everything we go through in life for his purposes.  To be honest, though this is true, it doesn't always FEEL true.  So often, when I spend an entire day or week sick on the couch, I feel like one of those little scraps...like a leftover piece cut from something that was once useful or meaningful.  However, this week, this idea of God not wasting anything in my life has started to make a little more sense to me.

As I have mentioned many times before, I love to write.  It is truly a passion of mine.  However, sometimes, I can sit down for hours and come out with something that I hope nobody ever reads. These past couple weeks, I have been thinking about some old stories that I wrote, but never finished.  I remember almost throwing them away, because I thought they were so terribly written.  But now that a little time has passed, I can see both their flaws and their merit.  It is making me want to turn those scraps of writing into something new, something useful.  If my health holds up enough, I think I will give it a try.  If they are not turning out, I might just tuck them away for another day... Either way, I am learning to appreciate the jagged and unfinished things in my life as projects to be used in the future-even if it takes 5 or 10 years to finish.