jacob’s blankets
Our son Jacob is 12 and in the 6th grade. He is bright, funny, a straight A student, and a super little athlete. Yes, I may be a little biased!! Up until this last year, he slept with 2 very “special” blankets. And that’s what he’d call them. “Mom, where are my special blankets?!” He needed them to go to sleep. He wanted them when he was tired or sad. Yes, it is sweet and helpful when your children latch onto something special, a blanket or perhaps a stuffed animal they received as a baby. However, the problem with having special blankets when you’re 11 is that it’s a little embarrassing, right? So if Jacob’s friends came over to visit or to spend the night, into the corner of the closet the blankets were stuffed!! When Jacob was 9, he was preparing to leave for Winter Camp. In a hurry to pack up the car, I completely forgot my “mom-sense” and asked him right in front of his friends if he wanted his blankets. With wide eyes he replied, “Oh, no, Mom, I don’t need those!” As his buddies left the room, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Both of them!!” I discreetly rolled them into the bottom of his sleeping bag!
Several years ago, I hired a cleaning lady to come in and help me “catch up”. She’d never been in our home and wasn’t aware of Jacob’s special blankets (yes, not one, but two!). That evening as Jacob got ready for bed he asked for his blankets. They should have been under his pillow. Well, I began to help him search. We looked in all of his usual hiding places, frantically searched his closet, nothing! Then it hit me. The cleaning lady must have thrown out his blankets. You see, these were two soft, knit blankets my mom had lovingly made for Jacob as a baby, and now they were absolutely shredded, threadbare, and full of holes from years of use. From all outside appearances there was nothing special about them!! They looked ragged and old. I had stopped trying to repair the blankets years ago, there was almost nothing left to them. They were beautiful when he was a baby, a constant comfort to Jacob, and now they’d been thrown out as trash! Of course Matt and I took a flashlight and searched through the garbage cans (thank goodness it wasn’t trash day!) Fortunately we found the blankets in a bag with a few broken toys I’d asked her to throw out. We consoled Jacob, put them in the wash, and they were good as “new”… to Jacob.
Jacob finally “retired” his blankets last year. I guess all the sleepovers helped break the habit. His blankets are now tucked away in the closet, tattered balls of yarn with no intrinsic value. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t sell them at a garage sale or even give them away! Who would want them? Yet they are and have always been of great worth to Jacob.
Sometimes I look at my life and choose to focus on the rough edges, the areas that have been tattered and torn. As my own worst critic, it is too easy for me to tear away at my sense of worth when I don’t measure up to my own or others’ expectations. Fortunately God does not allow me to wallow there too long. I know I am a child of the King and that my worth is ultimately found in Him.
Jacob’s blankets were old and worn, yet he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He could have let his blankets sit on a shelf and admired them from afar. They would still be shiny and new, but he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to receive the love and comfort they represented, and they would mean nothing to him! I’d like to look at the worn edges of my life and appreciate how my experiences, for better or for worse, have shaped me into who I am today. God’s Word says when we are weak, then He is strong. It is when we admit our weaknesses and ask for His courage that he is able to use us to touch others with the comfort we ourselves have received. I’m sure we can all think of a few experiences in our past, mistakes we have made, that we’d like to change. Can we hit rewind and “do-over”? No. Can we move forward and allow God to use us just as we are? Yes.
Scripture reveals Satan as deceiver, a great con artist. The accuser of lies. He’d love nothing more than to have us focus on our weaknesses. He takes great delight when God’s people neglect to accept the gift of grace that God so freely offers. But Jesus came to shed light in the darkness and to remove the guilt and shame that comes from our sinful hearts.
My mom is a sweet grandma and seeing the special blankets in such ragged condition, she set out on a mission to “save” the blankets and rescue Jacob from impending loss as his tattered balls of yarn dwindled away! She knit a pillow-case style cover for the blankets, one that looked and felt like Jake’s blankets. However, Jacob didn’t want the cover, he wanted his blankets, tattered and torn as they were. Used, loved, imperfect. Sometimes we think we need to be perfect in order for God to use us. That we need to have it all together. We’d like to smooth out those rough edges. Jesus went to the Cross to pay for our imperfections, for our brokenness. He who was without sin became sin for us, so that we would be complete in Him.
9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9,10
How have you experienced God’s strength in your weakness?
What lies are you tempted to believe about yourself? In what ways do you hold yourself to an unrealistic standard? How have you experienced the sufficiency of God’s grace in your life?
Roxanne Hammett
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:27 am
Thanks Roxanne. It’s amazing, when I think about it, how many lies are in my head about myself that God wants to heal. It’s good to be reminded that God loves and wants me and even uses me for his purposes no matter what.