Quilt by Dee Mallon
I Thessalonians 3:12-13a
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts . . . [NIV 2011]
Oh, this thing called love. It’s one of the most powerful aspects of God and yet, it’s the least understood or exercised. It’s become a word of hippies and lovers, cupids and cartoons instead of a force that can rock a people, even a nation. It’s the ultimate expression of paradox.
Love poured out on us from God is capable of healing and renewing hope for others. If I could operate in that anointed love, I could live a I Corinthians 13 life.
Love never fails.
If love is the action, then the heart is the container where love is rooted within and married to the Holy Spirit. The heart must be strong to endure rejection, hatred, anger, abandonment, prejudice, lies, and ignorance. The heart must be flexible, sometimes a fortress and sometimes a cloud. The heart can have doors but they cannot be locked. The heart must be a sponge and a drum. Sometimes, the heart must be a mirror and at other times, a vacuum. The heart, blessed by God, is a micro-universe, always expanding to make room for more love.
Keep me mindful this day of my heart and the hearts of others, that love would flow, overflow, and become a river, undaunted, ever changing, and reaching into the depths of those dry places.
Meditations from Zion 
What a lovely post, Irm… I am glad to have found your blog through my heart quilt. Thank you for asking permission to use it.
One of the things I think about while making heart quilts is how the whole of the piece can exhibit balance, beauty, and integrity even if the individual pieces that comprise the heart are broken, scarred, and chaotic. Sometimes I include words to heighten this idea… words like ‘hunger’ or ‘darkness’.
How you describe the ‘ultimate paradox’ of the heart is moving… it is a hard subject to comment on without sounding trite or unoriginal, and somehow (the strength of your faith, perhaps?), you’ve managed it. I love the idea of the heart needing to fill the many roles of drum, sponge, fortress, cloud, mirror and vacuum… very evocative.
thank you.
It means a great deal to me that you would a) allow me to use your beautiful work and b) to speak into the thoughts I have shared here.
One day, I’ll be coming back to the Boston area and perhaps there will be an extended journey to discover your shop and experience your pieces in person.