More than Baggage

Traveling always makes me want to make a new bag. There's something fresh about picking out fabric and creating something new for a new place. I wanted something flat to pack, lightweight and not too hot, and big enough just to carry a few things as we walk around the camp where we will be working in Germany the next few weeks.

Figuring this one out made my head hurt but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. You can find a link to the pattern in English HERE. I fell in love with its picture on Pinterest. I complicated mine by placing my stripe at the bottom of the bag, using one-directional fabric, and added an inner pocket.

Lining and inside pocket

But my main motivation for sewing this week was that I my son and I have been suffering from eczema for years and his pediatrician suggested going on a dairy-free diet, so I needed to be prepared perhaps to carry my own food wherever we go (and well a new bag makes it a tiny bit more bearable!) He also tested allergic to egg, peanuts, and walnuts (and the cat). I haven't been tested yet myself but decided to cut all of these out in case they affect me too and so I can sympathize and cook for him. Stopping all of these cold-turkey while traveling has been sooo hard! But the surprise more was all of the feelings and fears that rose out of me. And I say rose because that implies that they were always there.

One of the first mornings I cried because we went out to breakfast and I could not find a single thing to eat. I cried at Wal-Mart because they had none of the dairy substitutes I could find at home. I cried when we got to our destination because the week ahead with my tiny bag of groceries seemed so bleak. My stomach began to quiver and feel anxious on the way to the cafeteria. Beneath it all I was resenting God for our issues and growing bitter at how narrow (and tasteless) my world seemed. Irrelevant lies began to fill my thoughts about God's fairness and my ugliness and my job as a mom. And I think I was actually grieving the loss of freedom knowing I was headed to Europe soon and wanted to be able to pick up anything delicious-looking without reading any labels.  I know, so dramatic and self-pitying; evidently the sleeping giants in my heart. I sought a few faithful friends to lift my weary heart before the Father and experienced the reality check of surrendering my relatively small trials to Him in exchange for peace. Light again shone through the gray skies that had smothered me.

I recently read "Waking the Dead" by John Eldridge and have been chewing on his idea of caring for my heart or for the heart of others. If anything from this month I want to walk away with a sensitivity to the heart issues that may cling to anything that we go through.
I could have just paid attention to my hunger or inner pity-party, but the real issues stemmed from my heart, not my stomach. There were lies to reject, confessions to be made, and hope to receive.
Isn't that the way it always is? With anyone around me, what am I doing to check in on and care for their heart? It's not just a "bad day with the kids", but a longing for stillness and peace and a return to thoughts that are eternal and not just attending to immediate needs. It's usually not "just a sickness", but the anxieties and lies that chase after you in your weakness. I have been asking God to give me ears to really hear what is going on at the heart-level when others speak. We are such complicated beings of body, soul, spirit and emotion. Too often we carry on like we are one dimensional beings because it takes too much time to ponder the heart and lay all that lies beneath before the Lord. But through the evident multi-layers exposed through my own problems I ask Him to help me discern them clearly in the stories of others. And care enough to address it.

Apparently a little ice cream withdrawal is food for the spirit.



 "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." -Proverbs 4:23