Mary-Grace's Blog

I hate humidity. I hate the way it makes everything around me feel sticky or the way it makes my hair turn into a fluffy, completely untamable frizz ball. I particularly hate humidity on cloudy, dull days. I don’t appreciate that sort of mixed message. The dreariness of those days lures me to the futon: to curl up under a blanket in a pair of fuzzy socks and a cup of coffee (maybe even some homework if I’m feeling motivated). Just when I think I’m positively approaching a miserable day, humidity has to come in and ruin it. Humidity keeps me as far away from blankets and futons as possible. It has me hot and uncomfortable and feeling claustrophobic. It has me begging for the rain to come and cool the air so I can breathe again.

 If you’ve been anywhere near Grantham, Pennsylvania lately, I’m sure you have already arrived at the conclusion that this was not my week. In fact, this week has felt suppressing for reasons beyond the muggy atmosphere or my consecutively bad hair days. It was my fourth week of classes, which means that almost every one of my professors just so happened to feel that it was the perfect time for whopping exams and extensive projects that would account for twenty percent of my final grade. So I spent the week smothered—by deadlines and rubrics and looming tests and, of course, the stifling, thick air outside.

 I love Friday afternoons. I love the feeling they bring: that feeling of relief—of being able to breathe in deeply because I’ve made it through. I love their message of hope: that a weekend awaits me and promises me rest and rejuvenation.

 On my way to class today, sheets of rain poured down on Messiah’s hot, humid campus. In only minutes, the sidewalks flooded and water seeped up through my shoes, soaking my socks to assure a comfortable completion of my second exam of the day. Students were scrambling from building to building—some in full sprint, others barefoot with flip flops in hand desperate to reach refuge from the rain. By the time I made it to Boyer Hall, I realized that my umbrella did little to keep me dry. I was all ready to throw in the towel and name this the worst week ever, but then I noticed that the air was breathable. Even if it was only for those few minutes of pounding rain, I could feel the air cooling down. I took a deep breath and thanked God it was Friday. The rain always comes.

 “He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.  Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? See how he scatters his lightning about him bathing the depths of the sea.” –Job 26: 27-30

On Monday night, six of my closest girlfriends, Sue (our amazing mentor) and I met in our perfectly cozy-sized Mountain View triple for our first small group meeting of the semester. We picked up right where we left off: with beaming smiles and bear hugs and rumbles of laughter breaking out as we each found a seat on the futon or grabbed a pillow and plopped down on the shag carpet. Every time I can remember, I thank God for this amazingly beautiful group of women that he led me to here. We met freshman year, as friends, and we began a student-led small group, as sisters. We signed up our group through an on-campus ministry called Koinonia, a Greek word which means fellowship or family. Personally, I couldn’t think of a more perfect word to describe our relationship with each other. These girls have me through thick and thin. When my walk with God feels easy, they help me realize that I’m doing it wrong; and when my walk with God feels difficult, they remind me why it’s worth it.

One of these amazing girls, Jordan, and I traveled to Greece last spring to spend a semester studying in Athens. Throughout our trip, we brainstormed gift ideas to bring back to the rest of our friends. We contemplated bracelets or purses or key chains as we passed through the buzzing streets of downtown Monastiraki, a swarming touristic area located at the foot of the Acropolis. Well into our trip, we had yet to commit to any of the typical souvenirs when a friend asked if we would join her on a trip to a less-flashy fabric shop that she stumbled into the day earlier. I’m not much of a sewer, and I can’t say that I’ve ever been into a fabric store before (let alone shopped for fabric), but the invite was a good enough excuse to abandon my Greek homework in my apartment and stop for some lemon-peppered chicken slouvaki on the way home.

Much to our surprise, we were immediately awed by the shop: the sea of colors lining the walls, the soft glisten of beading catching the corner of our eyes, the intricate designs on each piece of artwork delicately colliding into one another. There were dozens of pieces of hand-sewn fabrics—from pillow cases to table runners to tapestries. The shop owner shared with us that each piece was made of random scraps of fabric found lying here or there and stitched together into a collage of many bits and pieces.  As we slowly worked our way through piles of pillow cases, admiring each piece for its individuality, Jordan came up with the idea to pick out one square for each of the girls in our small group. We must have spent over an hour  in that little shop bouncing ooo’s and aaahhh’s off of each other until we were determined that we found the piece that was just right for each of us.

I was convinced that they were the perfect gift. Not only were they beautiful and uniquely different from any usual souvenir, but they were each uniquely different from each other. As Jordan and I handed out the pillow cases to each of our friends after we returned to campus this fall, a new thought popped into my head. I looked at my own piece of fabric—green, with delicate pearl beading and swirls of maroon and cream fabric—and I thought how each of our lives was a lot like our pillow cases.  We are made up by snippets of memories woven together, and we glisten in ways that reflect where we come from and who we are.

If there was a piece of fabric created to represent my life, I know it wouldn’t consist of all shining, glowing snippets. There would be a place for my rough patches and sadness and mistakes; but still, those pieces would be necessary for the whole collage. They would only contribute to who I am as a whole: a beautiful creation of God. On Monday night, I looked around the room to realize how each of these girls had a part in the stitch-work of my life in the past two years, and I could only smile. I knew they contributed to the radiance and depth in my life-fabric. It also made me think of all the other people in my life that contributed: my family, youth pastors, coaches or friends from home—and how I need to thank and remember them as well.

I am so excited for more memory making with these amazing young women, and this year we are blessed with another beautiful girl joining our Monday night family.  I know I’m not a finished product yet, so I need to be mindful of who and what I am letting sew pieces onto my life-fabric. As for the girls that God led me to at Messiah College, bring out your needles and thread and let the Junior-year sewing begin.