By Karen Sievert
Count your Blessings, not your woes
It’s a saying I’ve heard throughout my life but it took a tragic event for me to realize how truly blessed I am.
On September 16, 2016, shortly after putting on my pajamas, my daughter noticed smoke coming into the kitchen from the garage. My husband tried to open the door, but was unable to because the knob was too hot! He told us all to get out of the house immediately, which, I believe, saved our lives. Thanks to his quick thinking we were incredibly blessed that no one was hurt or injured. However, even though multiple fire departments responded, we watched our house burn down.
I’ll be honest and say that losing your home and all your possessions is hard. It is difficult to process, and takes an immense amount of time to “start all over.” Imagine losing all your identification, car keys, phones; getting out with only the clothes you had on! So many memories tied up into pictures and possessions. For me, it was compounded by the fact that I worked from home, so I also lost all that I’d created and worked so hard for over the last 20 years.
Yet, it was the work I’d done that truly made me see how blessed I am. You see, I’m a quilter, and so belong to one of the best communities around, the Quilting Community! To say that I was blown away by the response from other quilters, well, that would be an understatement!
Quilters from all over came together and provided me with love and support. They were incredibly generous, sending fabrics, sewing machines, supplies, and even clothing! Gammill provided me a new machine so that I could begin quilting again. But most of all, they blessed me with love and encouragement. They helped me to see that all was not lost; that hope, faith and love could provide me with the courage to press on!
I am so humbled and proud to be a member of this community. I am so very blessed by your friendship and hope that one day, I’ll be able to reciprocate and be the blessing in someone else’s life that you all have been in mine.
Until then, I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the “lost quilts” while I continue on my quilting journey and start on the first of a new generation of quilts. Happy quilting to you all, and thanks again for all your love and support!
