Seed Pearls

“There’s a story hidden in every wedding dress I’ve ever created,” twinkled the 90-something couturier, confidingly.

A rivulet of sudden knowing what was coming next  rippled like a whisper over me as I watched this scene from Hallmark’s latest in their mystery movie series, Signed Sealed and Delivered last Sunday evening.  Misting my eyes, for in this character’s words I heard God echoing a memory back to me, reminding me… there are so many ways He invites us to sow into each other’s lives…

To the amazement of the two postal women who were searching out the sender identity of an undeliverable package containing a partial letter and a disheveled wedding gown, the designer – gingerly fingering along the hemline of the dress – quickly and surprisingly pulled forth a bit of  tucked away material stitched with a message on it.    She smiled.   “Yes, every gown holds a secret story,” she revealed, “but not the one you think.  Mine is the story of a secret prayer I always tuck inside each one for the bride to be…”

“Ohhhhhh…” I breathed over a lump in my throat.

A tucked away prayer for each and every one of her clients!   I loved this!  Especially because it reminded me of one of my first jobs after college…   Young, freshly renewed in following the Lord and asking Him to open ways for me to lift others to Him, I often found myself praying with heavy burden for a single mom co-worker (Nancy) who seemed lost, hurting, and seeking solace in all the empty places…  She’d often invite me to go with her to a restaurant across the street after work “to talk,” and I always hoped we might truly do that talking.  That maybe God wanted to open up a heartfelt, healing sharing of Him.   Only too soon I began to understand — I was just there as cover for her to not be alone at “happy hour,” where no real conversations ever took place, but my prayer burden grew stronger as I listened to her woes.

One day, I’d brought an example of something a friend was creating and selling — popular at the time — stuffed bunnies in beautifully sewn outfits, and displayed it on my desk.

“Oh, my eleven year old daughter would love one of these,” Nancy told me.

When she ordered one, I suddenly had a thought.  “Would you stitch a hidden prayer note inside the body of the piece for me?”  I asked my creative friend.  Like a prayer cloth that St. Paul wrote of in the epistles, this hidden prayer would be a bit of His Light in their home… So, writing out a prayer for Nancy and her daughter, I included several scripture  promises of His drawing this family to Himself, slid it into a tiny envelope and gave to my friend.  Without peeking at it’s contents, she carefully sewed it like a hidden jewel into the stuffed animal body…  Presenting it to my co worker, I often pictured it sitting on her daughter’s bookshelf, a little beacon of prayer where maybe there was no other…

I don’t know whatever happened to Nancy and her daughter, long ago grown up.  Or to that prettily dressed rabbit, or how long it may have “lived” in their home.  I soon left the company and moved on, losing touch.  But He knows the little flames He sets through us, and fans them in ways we don’t imagine…

I still find myself wanting to tuck away hidden prayers like  this one.  Only nowadays it is more that I pray over every piece of artwork I sell… lifting the owner and family and home up to Him, asking Him to pour out showers of His blessings, His light and joy, His heart on these.  That every time they look upon the portrait I made, they will somehow see His Light shining in it, know His heart drawing them, healing them in whatever ways needed, embracing them.  Similar to this bridal designer in the movie,  I want my work to tell a story too… both of the lives of those who buy the portraits, and for them, in ways only He knows they need…

It’s something I often do in writing to encourage as well… praying for those who read, that He will transform the words in ways that touch and lift up…

I like to think of God sitting beside me as I watched that movie.  Anticipating my viewing of this scene, as one who has planned it for me to hear and remember …  reminding me how much He calls us each to join in weaving His story into the tapestry stories He writes through us each upon another… if we ask Him to…   Some hidden, like secret seeds waiting to burst into bloom.  Others already more fully blooming and ready to place into another’s waiting hands.

Whose story are you sowing as pearl seeds of prayer into today??  🙂

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© Pam Depoyan

“Bridal Reflections in Cameo,”  portrait drawing shown above, available in my Bridal Reflections at pamdepoyanblog.wordpress.com.  ASK ABOUT PRINTS OR CUSTOM PORTRAITS DRAWN FROM YOUR FAVORITE PHOTOS!   Contact me at pam.depoyan@gmail.com

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