Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: HANDIWORK (01/14/21)
-
TITLE: Welcome to Your House | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
01/20/21 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Finding an affordable rug with at least two of the Tabernacle colors was my “fleece” as to the feasibility of a Holy Place theme for the living room. I envisioned a room with white linen and embroidered cherubim, with touches of blue, purple, and scarlet. But how to make it happen? I had limited handiwork skills. I needed a Bezalel like the Lord gave Moses, someone “filled with the Spirit of God in wisdom, understanding and in knowledge and in all craftsmanship.”
Bezalel showed up in the spirit of my friend Ardie. Her decorating taste was different from mine but she loved to help her friends fulfill their own vision. When I sought her advice about my ideas she offered to help in any way she could. I found the area rug but it wouldn’t fit into my car. Ardie and her husband, Brian, offered to haul it in their pickup. The project was on.
My chintz sofa definitely had to be slipcovered. Ardie had never made a slipcover before but was game to try. We had a tight budget, but it seemed the Lord arranged for bargains that felt like offerings for the Tabernacle. We needed 18 yards of fabric and walked into a store’s half-price sale on all “cotton” fabrics. A bolt labeled “white linen” caught our eye. What joy to find out it was actually cotton! This project seemed to have God’s hand on it.
I was dumbfounded when Ardie and Brian loaded the chintz sofa onto their pickup and took it to their house for Ardie to make the slipcovers, which included six cushions with piping. That sofa sat on their dining room table for two weeks while Ardie worked her magic.
We crafted faux stain-glass panels for the east window to represent the breastplate of the priest who entered from the east. Blue, purple and scarlet pillows and Ardie’s ultimate masterpiece—an embroidered, appliqued, six-winged cherubim wall hanging—completed the room. Almost. The pale mauve walls of cracked plaster needed something. That something turned into a project that would never have been completed without my Bezalel. We tore marbleized wallpaper into irregular large stone shapes and decoupaged the walls and ceiling. The tabernacle morphed into a temple. Gold-glaze brush strokes on two opposing sides of the ceiling suggested the possibility of communing beneath the wings of the cherubim—enfolded by His glory.
The living room today is my vision but Ardie’s handiwork—or maybe I should say, the Lord’s vision and the handiwork of His Spirit working through Ardie.
With a satisfied sigh, I look at the finished work. The fireplace represents to me the altar of burnt offerings. A wall mirror reflecting a row of Bibles and study books suggests the laver where worshippers are cleansed through God’s Word. A brass seven-branched lampstand glows on the mantel. A sofa table holding a seder plate stands in for the table of showbread. Another table with a small chest of frankincense represents the table of incense on the west wall. A purple banner with the embroidered words A New and Living Way embodies the torn veil open to the Holy of Holies. I’d long thought of our guest room on the other side of that wall as a holy of holies because several women told of intimate encounters with the Lord during their stay there.
Of course these symbols are only a shadow of good things to come, not the good things themselves. Many homes are lined with family photos. I choose to surround myself with shadows of symbols of the most loved and central person in our extended family—the Lord Jesus. Our Priest, our Sacrifice, The Sanctifier, cleansing us by washing us with His Word, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, our Intercessor.
With the Psalmist, my heart has one desire: One thing I ask of the Lord . . . to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life (in the shadow of the Almighty), delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple.
Exodus 25:8; 35:31; Psalm 27:4; 91:1; Hebrews 10:1
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
I wasn't able to see anything that could improve what you have already written :)