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| Photo by Francis.arquesa 2014 |
I dreamed that my family and I are touring the French
countryside, accompanied by a young blonde girl, wearing her hair in a braid,
whom I didn’t recognize. In the dream, we have just visited an ancient chateau
and are walking along the bank of the surrounding moat. I find a fossil that
contains what look like four black teeth, and I cry out excitedly to my
husband, who is an avid fossil collector. But he doesn’t share my enthusiasm,
and dismisses my find, saying “Oh, that’s just old building material.”
We come to a tree which has been uprooted and is lying on
its side, the dead roots pointing backward along our path and the black, bare
branches pointing forward, like a giant sea fan stranded on the beach. However,
most of the trunk seems to still be connected to the earth by vines overgrowing
it.
The young girl asks me about the bed coverings we had seen
in the castle, all pieced together.
“You mean quilts?” I ask in surprise. “Haven’t you seen a
quilt before? You and I need to have a long talk about quilting!”
I explain how I had once started to make a quilt, but I hadn’t
spoken to anyone who knew how to do it, so I had to learn by trial and error
rather than benefiting from the experience of others. I had chosen to use
hexagonal quilt blocks instead of squares, which made my task even more
difficult. Undeterred, she says she wants to make a theme quilt, based on the subject
of painted cities.
We meet up with our son, who is acting as our tour guide,
at the visitor center, and we ask him if we can go back along the bank to
explore further. He says no; we have to move on to our next destination.
As I awoke and contemplated the meaning of the dream, I
realized that a fossil is a preserved record and memento of the distant past.
To dwell in the past is a danger, if we attempt to treasure it in itself, rather
than realizing that the lessons learned and experiences we had there are just
building material for our present life. In the dream, my son warned me that we
can’t revisit our past experiences, because it’s time to move on to our next
destination.
The fossil in the dream took the form of teeth, which in
Scripture are often equated with violence, aggression or insatiable greed (Deuteronomy 32:24; Job 16:9; 41:14;
Psalm 35:16; 37:12; 124:6; Proverbs 30:14; Isaiah
41:15; Lamentations 2:16; Daniel 7:5,7; Zechariah 9:7).
The fossil teeth were black, suggesting that God can use even the darkest experiences such as these, whether we were victim or perpetrator, to shape us
more into the character of Jesus (Philippians
3:10), working all things together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).
There were four teeth in the fossil, and the first mention
of the number four in the Bible references the fourth day of Creation, in which
God made the sun, moon and stars not only as light sources, but to indicate and
measure the passage of time and to give us the four seasons (Genesis
1:14-19). These measurements really have personal meaning to us only to
mark past events, for we are not promised tomorrow (James 4:14), and only God knows how many years or even
minutes our future on earth holds (Luke
12:20).
The uprooted dead tree we encountered also suggests the
contrasts between the past, for the roots were pointing backward, and the
future, with the bare branches pointing forward, indicating a general direction
but no details, for our future is unknown except to God (Jeremiah 29:11). But the only part of this tree still connected
to the earth and showing signs of life was the trunk, symbolizing the present
in which we must live (Psalm 118:24;
2 Corinthians 6:2; Hebrews 3:13). As the saying goes, “Yesterday
is history; tomorrow is a mystery; today is a gift, which is why we call it the
present.”
Jesus warned us not to worry about the future (Matthew 6:25-34), but instead to
ask Him for our daily bread (Matthew 6:11;
Luke 11:3), which He will provide just as He provided daily manna for
the Israelites on their wilderness journey (Exodus
16:15-34). Although we are not to dwell in the past, or to let Satan
rub our noses in our past mistakes, we should constantly remind ourselves of
God’s faithfulness.
If we remember that He is faithful and just to forgive our
sins (1 John 1:9), Satan
cannot use these as a weapon against us. The prophet Samuel took a special
stone and named it Ebenezer to remind the people of the LORD’s great help against
their enemies (1 Samuel 7:12).
In the dream, we were walking along the bank of the moat,
which was used in ancient times to separate, distance, and protect the castle
and its inhabitants from invaders in the world. Similarly, Scripture warns us to
keep ourselves separate from the world, by being decently different in our
speech, lifestyle and dress, and to be holy as God is holy (Romans 12:1;1 John 2:15; 1
Peter 1:15-16).
Although I didn’t recognize her in the dream, I realize now
that the young blonde girl with the braid represents my former self, and that
she resembled me as a teenager. Even as a child, I loved collecting and
preserving memorabilia. The art of quilting seems to symbolize how our life is pieced
together from memories and building blocks of experience, and the quilt I had started
making in real life was made from cloth hexagons, which I embroidered to
reference places I had visited and important life events.
But I never actually finished the quilt, which is fitting,
because my life still continues as a work in progress, praise God! He is
piecing it together like a fine tapestry. At times I only see the rough seams,
tangled threads, and knots on the reverse side of the quilt. But when I see Him
in glory, He will show me the right side of the beautifully fashioned work of
art He designed!
As I had attempted to preserve my past memories through quilting,
I had done it on my own, without first seeking Godly counsel. Learning from the
life experiences of fellow Christians, with their wisdom and advice set in a
Biblical context (Proverbs 27:17; Hebrews
10:25), is one of the great benefits of being part of the church, or
body of Christ (Romans 7:4; 12:5).
Of course I had not done that when I began the quilt, as I was still unsaved
and full of prideful self-righteousness, listening neither to Christians nor to
God Himself.
It is interesting that I chose the hexagon as the pattern
for my quilt blocks, as six is the number of man (Revelation 13:18). The more traditional four-sided, square
quilt block reminds me of the term foursquare, which occurs in God’s directions
for making holy items for His service, like the altar (Exodus 27:1; 37:25, etc.) and the breastplate (Exodus 39:9). It also describes the
court in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 40:47)
and the holy city of New Jerusalem (Revelation
21:16).
Why did the girl, representing me before I was saved, want
to make her quilt on the theme of painted cities? “Painted” in Scripture generally
refers to worldly adornment for purposes of seduction or ungodly pride, as in
the evil queen Jezebel painting her face (2
Kings 9:30), and the rebellious nation of Israel painting her face or
eyes to please false gods that could not save nor even love her (Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 23:40).
The prophet Jeremiah warns the king of Judah that his city
will be destroyed because of the wrongdoing of the people, but that in
contrast, God will build a beautiful, spacious house of cedar painted in
vermilion, a brilliant red pigment (Jeremiah
22:14), looking ahead to the shed blood of Christ that saves us from
all our sins (Matthew 26:28; Romans
3:25; Hebrews 9:22).
If we follow the world and its idols, our lives and cities
will be in shambles. But if we are saved by our faith in the death, burial and
resurrection of Jesus Christ (1
Corinthians 15:1-4), and if we trust Him to design and create the quilt
of our lives, He will work in us a beautiful and miraculous masterpiece!
© 2017 Laurie Collett
