What do home-made medical masks have to do with my faith?

We’ve graduated from “social distancing” to staying at home. Along the way, I’ve accumulated gratitude gems on my “blessing list.” Yes, I love lists! I love little notebooks and tablets on which I record my beloved lists. I feel a bit more secure if I can jot things down, categorize my thoughts, and formulate action plans, even within the confines of a quarantine. 

Therefore, when the call went out within our local community for seamstresses to make masks, my heart started pumping with enthusiasm. Behold another project! Out came my quilting scraps. Family mask requests were the first ones made, closely followed by those for the medical staff within our church community, then personalized creations for friends. As I was sewing, my thoughts about each person for whom I was sewing morphed into prayers; prayers for safety, endurance, and encouragement. Against the backdrop of my humming sewing machine and my husband’s encouraging commentary, my own ruminating parsed out an additional gratitude nugget.

 I definitely miss church and I’m thankful for my faith practised within its embrace. I’m realizing more acutely during this exceptionally stressful season of isolation that my faith is not merely a faith in “churchy” rituals. It is a faith that transcends all my imagined limits, whether these limits are mandated from without, or enforced by my own psyche.  

As the old hymn says, “Faith is the victory, faith is the victory, oh glorious victory that overcomes the world.”

Is your faith one that is limited by ritual and doctrine, or is it alive and active?