When we traveled to Hong Kong
to pick up our daughter Kate, after she had served as a missionary for eighteen
months, Dave and I made our way through the steamy, thickly populated streets
to a little tailor’s shop. Up some
narrow stairs, and into a small front room, we looked at layer on layer of
fabric as we waited for the tailor. She entered the room with a necklace with a small pair of scissors
around her neck and a measuring tape dangling from her shoulders. In broken English, we discussed styles and
fabrics. She measured both of us, every
inch, in places I would not have thought mattered. Three days later Dave had a fabulously fitted
new dress suit and I had a new floor length silk skirt to wear at our other
daughter Annie’s forthcoming wedding.
We, who live in the real
world, generally dress ourselves “off the rack”, with clothing that is made to
fit the average size of the typical human.
Custom made clothing is expensive, and difficult to make to fit
perfectly.
Yesterday, as my grandniece
Quincey was getting into her pajamas, she started dancing around in her
nakedness. Pirouettes and arabesques in all her glory! It’s cute to do that when you are three years
old. I mentioned that she had a very
happy birthday suit! She looked at me, puzzled.
I told her that what she was wearing was the same thing she was wearing
when she was born – on her birth day.
She looked down at herself, then up at me, then giggled a little. Quincey’s
birthday suit was custom fitted for her, too.
When my kids were kids it
seemed that at least once a day someone would be complaining that something
wasn’t fair. We had four kids in six
years, so the instinct to compare was natural, especially when they were
adolescents and teenagers.
Each of our kids had
individual strengths and weaknesses. One
or two were perpetually, late. One or
two were a little lax in the homework department, and others never had to be
reminded. Some were dependable
drivers. Others spent a bit of time in
traffic school. Or grounded. Some did chores without too much
complaint. Others… well, you get the
picture. It took me too many years to
finally figure out that there was no way in the world that I could treat them
fairly, because they each had individual lessons to learn. And since I was their “tailor” so to speak, I
needed to measure and cut according to the shape they were in. Trying to get them to understand that we, as
members of the human race, are supposed to try to treat each other with fairness, while at the
same time helping them see that their upbringing needed to be individually
designed and therefore could not appear to be fair…well, that was quite the
task!
Now they are grown, and my
attention to “raising people” has turned to … well, to myself. I am trying to raise myself, I suppose. Or maybe it would be better put to say that I
am conscious of the fact that Someone is raising me. He knows me.
He’s measured and evaluated the way I move, and He’s created a custom
fitted suit just for me.
My challenges and my
strengths are custom designed for my spirit.
Because of that, I cannot adequately compare myself and my situation
with a single other person alive, or who ever lived, because their suits were
custom fitted for them as well.
I have every confidence that
the Tailor who crafted my spirit, is fully aware of every curve and divot,
every weak and strong muscle in my soul.
He has clothed me in flesh, and in human experience. He gives me custom challenges and sets me up
for custom successes. And while I
complain that something is just plain too tight, he knows that I can grow and
shrink to fit the suit as easily as He can adjust the suit to fit me.
My HOPE for today is that the
ones I love will step back, quit complaining, and recognize that the things we
hate about our selves and our lives are part of the suit our Maker has custom
designed for our souls. It may take a
thousand years, or more, for us to finally see why the suit was so
uncomfortable for a while.
I’ve said for years,
"YOU CAN’T NOT LEARN!"
It may take a long time. It
may take a good bit of stretching and pulling, and trimming and adjusting, but
eventually we will look back and draw a breath, holding it in a while, then end
with a sigh. “Ooooh! Now I get it!” we
will exclaim, as we button our suit coats around us, shake our shoulders and
wiggle our hips. “Fits just fine” we’ll
say, forgetting all that time we were on the earth squirming and scratching
when we first put on that suit God made for us…these custom fitted suits called
life.
