Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

The LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

PSALM 84:11

Before her untimely death, I’d known Roanne since we were kids. She played such an integral and life-altering role in the person I am now. For instance, she was the first person to believe in me as a writer. And she introduced me to several of the great loves in my life, such as English Breakfast tea, Cary Grant movies, and the difference between Taco Bell and authentic Mexican cuisine. That being said, she and I couldn’t possibly have been more different.

Very much a Renaissance woman, Roanne’s diverse interests included a passion for needlework. She embroidered some of the most stunning canvases, and I often marveled at her ability to sit in a chair for hours on end, focusing on one teeny little stitch after another—especially in contrast with her complete inability to focus on any other area of her life in order to complete a task from beginning to end! Eventually those little specks of thread blended together to create something exquisite and astonishing.

My one and only embroidery experience dated back to the summer (and fall and winter) of 1971 when I made a truly awful piece for my mother that she later displayed proudly. But watching Roanne inspired the ridiculous idea that I wanted to give it another go. Roanne threw her enviable enthusiasm and patience into the task of teaching me, and it didn’t take long to discover that time had not developed any new skills in me. I still had absolutely no talent whatsoever for embroidery.

After countless hours of work on a Scripture sampler, I threw the canvas down on the ottoman and exclaimed, “I’m so over this!” Roanne set down her own project and encouraged me to pick it up again. “Look at it!” I cried. “It’s a mess. There’s a whole line of stitches in the wrong color, and look at this one right here!”

Holding it a few feet away, she said, “Now look at it. Do you see the mistakes from there?” I had to admit that I didn’t. “There isn’t a single wrong stitch that ruins the overall picture,” she pointed out. “The only thing that can do that is if you give up and don’t finish. It’s kinda like how your sins are covered over by what the Lord has already done. The only thing that messes up grace is if you fail to reach out for it.”

Roanne always said things like that. But in this particular case, I didn’t roll my eyes because she’d actually reached me. Success!

I finished that project after all, quoting her grace reference in my head the whole way to completion. I framed it and hung it on the wall, and I often gazed at it from across the room, knowing full well where to find each mistake but unable to actually see them…and feeling really, really blessed that, in God’s perspective, I looked like that sampler. Sandie

Today’s Prayer

Thank You, Lord, for looking at the big picture of me rather than stripping back the grace and redemption You’ve given me to cover all the ugly mistakes. Amen.