🧵 Stitched Together: Sacred Scraps

On prison quilts, redemption, and the mystery of being made whole.

This week, in an effort to stop doomscrolling, I watched a short documentary called The Quilters. One of my sons curled up next to me on the couch as we caught a glimpse into the daily lives of men quilting inside the sewing room of a level-five maximum-security prison.

The storytelling honored their humanity, holding both the pain they carried and the hope they held. It was a moving portrait of restorative justice, human dignity, empathy, and compassion. It’s not framed as a Christian story, but it felt like a glimpse of Christ-like love.

As the Netflix description puts it:

“From design to completion, the men reveal their struggles, triumphs, and sense of pride in creating something beautiful in this windowless, sacred space deep within the prison walls.”

Watching it sparked a thoughtful conversation with my son, and clearly, I’m still carrying it with me. (Heads up: there’s some salty language.)

We discussed how people who commit cruel or even awful acts are often carrying hidden hurts of their own. We talked about how Scripture repeatedly calls us to care for those in prison. We discussed how God’s very nature is inherently redemptive.

I keep thinking about what it means to be more than the worst thing we’ve done. That no matter how brutal life has been to us—or how brutal we’ve been to others—the possibility of healing still stands. Hope is never too far gone.

At our church, there’s a group of women who gather weekly with their own scraps and stories. They call themselves The Piecemakers. They stitch quilts for newborns and prayer quilts for those who are ill. Their work reminds me that a quilt is a story told in scraps, a glimpse of the beauty that’s possible when we don’t go it alone.

Mother Theresa is often quoted as saying, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

Quilts help us remember. They remind us that scraps on their own might not be much, but when stitched together, they tell the story of something more. Together, we become more than we ever could be on our own.

When we’re stitched together in compassion and community, we reflect the peaceable kingdom of Christ.

Every day, I drive past a halfway house. Men of all backgrounds sit out on the steps—some talking, some smoking, some just thinking. And I find myself captivated by what their stories have been, what they are, and what they someday might be. Not because I romanticize their pain, but because I believe what Bryan Stevenson reminds us: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

And I believe the same about them. About you. About me.

In a world weighed down by pain, the storytelling in The Quilters feels life-affirming. It doesn’t shy away from the hard truths, but it also reminds us that even in the hard, hope is possible. That, yes, our actions have very real and sometimes devastating consequences. When we harm others, we also wound ourselves. But also? Redemption is never out of reach.

The stories of these men reveal the healing power of creativity and collaboration. Of honoring the dignity of another. Of taking what has been broken and making something beautiful. Of using what you have to make the world a little more whole.

(The level of detail these men put into their quilts was astounding. If you watch, you’ll see that each piece reflects countless hours of meticulous work, patience, and intention. Their ability to transform donated fabric scraps into meaningful works of art took my breath away.)

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Empathy grows when we nurture it. The hard things we’ve lived through can tune our hearts toward compassion.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, we’re told that God is the father of compassion and the God of all comfort – the One who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

These men, whom many would write off or judge based on their history or even their looks, so clearly put care into every stitch as they quilted weighted blankets for autistic children and bedspreads for kids in foster care.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the onslaught of bad news lately. Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming: What if the world’s most corrupt leaders had a dramatic conversion experience—something like Paul on the road to Damascus?

“Why doesn’t God make that happen?” I asked my pastor-husband. “Wouldn’t that kind of miracle stop so much suffering and bring so many people to Jesus?”

He had some helpful theological thoughts, but when it came down to it, neither of us had a tidy answer. Sometimes our deepest questions can’t be wrapped in a bow. (Please beware of any spiritual leader or writer who always has the “right” answer and leaves no room for mystery or simply saying, I don’t know.)

Maybe miracles aren’t always blinding lights and voices from heaven.

Maybe miracles are made of thread and time and the courage to begin again.

Maybe Jesus shows up in a windowless sewing room.

I don’t have many answers when it comes to the mystery of God or the miracles of God.

But I do believe the presence of Christ meets us in the everyday, inviting us to let that presence reorient our hearts and redirect our paths. And somewhere, somehow, in our stitched-together hearts and stitched-together lives, peace is there.

It’s *Officially* Summer!

from the SUMMER introduction in my book Every Season Sacred

The summer months are swathed in what the church calendar calls Ordinary Time. In spring, we observe Lent and Easter. In winter, we celebrate Advent and Christmas.

But summer invites us to slow down and relish the reality that God is with us in the slow moments. The sprawl of summer beckons us to see the sacred in the sticky sunscreen, the dripping popsicles, and the stretches of summer boredom.

Perhaps, if we allow it to, the slower rhythm of summer can remind us that we are not the sum of what we do or the magical memories we can conjure up for our children. These moments of Ordinary Time invite us to reflect on the glorious truth that God calls us beloved children, desiring our presence.

As you enter this slower stretch of time, may you be open to how the God of all seasons is reminding you that your family needs rhythms throughout the year to simply be. An object in motion stays in motion—so we all need to stop sometimes.

As the psalmist writes, we need to be still and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10). We need to be bored sometimes—because maybe that’s when we hear the still, small voice of God.

Borrow this Prayer

from my book Every Season Sacred, which has weekly reflections with a corresponding breath prayer, prayer to share with your family, and conversation questions

O God, what is freedom
If it is not for everyone?
O Christ, in Your abundance,
Help us to be a family that loves
The people across from us—
And the people around the world from us.
Help us not to lose sight
Of Your reflection
In our local and global neighbors.

Help us to hold the tension
Of who we are
And who we could be.
Free us from what entangles us so that,
In You, we may love others and work
For the flourishing of all people.

O God, thank You for
Reauthoring our
Small notions of freedom
And for offering a
Better way.
Amen.

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Breath Prayer

Monday
INHALE: Help me believe that I’m