encouragement in a fabric store

Encouragers appear in unlikely places ... like fabric stores.

This week I made, oh, a third trip to Joann's fabrics in my quest for a fabric to recover some cushions. No indecision this day, no sirree. I resolved not to leave that store empty-handed.

Though I try to shake it off, a funny feeling washes over me when I enter a fabric store. Melancholy. Slight anxiety. Sentimentality.

My mother and I spent considerable time together in fabric stores through my teen years. She hated to sew, but I'd grown to love it, and she loved that I loved it. So off we'd go. In my earliest sewing days, the nearest fabric store was housed in an old colonial house in downtown Avon, Connecticut. I mean old, like 200 years. The ceilings were so low that our eyes burned from the fabric fumes. Fabric fumes? Yes, mom and I were convinced of fabric fumes.

Saturday afternoons found us studying pattern books and strolling past fabric bolts. We let our fingers gently brush the ends of each fabric, as if testing for the right weight and texture. I still do this today.

All these years later, I often visit a fabric store alone and I feel, well, a bit lonesome. The girl inside me needs a woman who's willing to give opinions on colors, study pattern books ... and touch fabrics with me.

This week's visit: looking, touching, remembering. Right colors, wrong weight. Right weight, wrong colors. A woman older than me was busy selecting quilting fabric and I asked her, "excuse me, do you think any of these fabrics would work for covering cushions?"

I knew full well they would not, but she looked friendly and experienced.

"No, probably not. Too lightweight." She smiled. "And do you want all cotton, or a blend?"

"Oh, yeah. Probably a blend." I thanked her and moved on.

Thirty minutes later, checking out with my brightly colored floral piece, the clerk ran her hand across my selection and said, "ooooh, I love this!"

I answered, "oh, I'm so glad!" Then felt a little silly.

My unwitting encouragers had stepped up. It felt good. And I realized we all need encouragers, and to be encouragers. It's one reason we're all on this earth together.

So encourage each other with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:18