By Kat Silverglate, Copyright 2023
When you’re thirty-something juggling work and family, new to motherhood, full of tricky questions about life and God and desperate to catch glimpses of wisdom that will bring some sense of sanity to the how-do-I-figure-this-out stage of life; finding a role model feels a bit like searching for a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. You know they’re out there, but sightings are as rare as hen’s teeth. Miraculously, I’d found a small group of rock star women my age – peers – willing to pour into me and vice versa. But the women who had already walked this mile that I was crawling? Women who’d made it through with an intact vibrant faith. Who saw in their rearview mirror some of the mush splattered like life-soup on my front facing windshield.
I found two of them the way we find many things of God; at the intersection of providence and hope.
I met Margarita first. She was in her mid-50’s and I in my mad-30’s. By any logical matching criteria, we were polar opposites. She’s Puerto Rican with a delicious accent and flamboyant mannerisms. I’m a brogue-less Irish lass with a book buying addiction. She moved to a retirement community at an uncharacteristically young age. I’d never met a soul who’d made an affirmative choice to live as the youngest -- by decades -- in a sea of octogenarian sunset-seasoned neighbors. Me? During my child bearing years, I moved to the guard-gated, obnoxiously manicured burbs swarming with yuppies. She was, even in her younger days, a self-avowed church lady who openly cried when the worship music started. She wore honest questions, epic failures and deep convictions on her sleeves like full arm tattoos. I was tiptoeing into the back of a new church culture trying to apply this whole faith thing by osmosis (without admitting any flaws, fears or questions). In my sassy Irish mama’s parlance, we were chalk and cheese. In Margarita-speak, aceite y agua.
Barbara, the more reserved of the pair, made a mountainesque blip on my radar screen later. She was shy and gentle, humble yet wildly artistic, self-deprecating and apologetic, fiercely loyal and resourceful. She spoke most boldly through her actions. Though I’d known her for a while, I didn’t overtly seek her wisdom until I watched her deal with hardship. Notably, her husband’s illness, successful double lung transplant, and eventual death followed by the sudden loss of her son-in-law. Watching her gracefully welcome a faith village into her need turned my head. Seeing the impact on others turned my heart.
And while I deeply admired this dynamic duo from afar, what drew me and still draws me to them to this day is, well… it’s their investment strategy. At 76 and 77, these women are by far some of the most lively, joyful, overflowing examples of the parable of talents you’ll ever meet. Nearly 7,000 individual children in the US, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Africa, Ukraine, Venezuela, Colombia, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Honduras, Peru, Tonga, and more have been touched by the work of their hands. Children in orphanages, hospitals, refugee camps, schools, broken homes, group homes, special needs facilities. Folks pulled out of human trafficking situations, recovering from drug addictions and waiting for release from prison. Even big children like me living in comfort but fighting internal battles like fear of failure have received a Komfort Kuddly from them -- a one of a kind, handmade doll with a written reminder that we are perfectly imperfect and God wants to reach us right where we are.
And no, they didn’t start this “ministry” when they were 30 or even 60. They started as newly minted septuagenarians who took what they had [sewing machines, a love of craft, donated fabric, and a pattern that had been sitting in a drawer for five years] and they stood in faith before a God who had shown them over and over that He would multiply their efforts if they would simply take the supplies He allowed to come their way and apply whatever ability He had given them.
Since landing on their investment strategy – “we make ‘em, God places ‘em,” they have delivered so many Komfort Kuddlies to Operation Christmas Child that Samaritans Purse did a mini-documentary. Check it out by clicking here: Happy Grandmas Send God's Love. And when they talk about what they are doing, the words burst forth like expanding champagne bubbles:
“Nothing is wasted with God. These dolls are made with donated fabric, old clothes, blankets, used comforters. We even give the unusable fabric scraps to our friend who uses them to stuff dog beds. Nothing is wasted. Not. A. Thing!”
The Happy Grandmas
If you’re a Face-booker, they have a Komfort Kuddlies page.
When I catch myself thinking, “I want to be like that in my 70’s,” I hear a refrain in my heart. “What about now?” Isn’t that what God’s asking in the parable of the talents? Matthew 25. “How-ya-livin-now with what-cha-already-got in your hands?”
Also known as the parable of the bags of gold, the story begins with a boss leaving for a trip. He gives his workers bags of gold to work with while he’s gone. Knowing each worker intimately, he has pre-measured the contents to fit the worker’s ability. He gives five bags to one, two to another, one to the last. The five and two baggers take what they’ve been given and go for it. It doubles. The one bagger, afraid of the boss and afraid he might fail, buries his. When the master returns, the fearful bagger digs it up and gives it back saying, in essence: Here ya go. I didn’t mess up your bag. I didn’t lose anything in it. You can’t be mad at me. So the master takes it and hands it to the bagger who isn’t operating out of the wrong kind of fear. He tells him to keep going for it and He’ll keep sending bags.
On so many levels, like the one bagger, we allow the wrong type of fear to hold us more firmly than the love of the Father. The ones who went after it -- who used what they were given -- seem so secure in the Master’s love, don’t they? Free. Like they know He’s for them. Isn’t trying to set them up for failure. This is the same boss who gave them the gold to begin with (unmerited grace). Who gave them their unique abilities. Who knew, better than they, what they could and couldn’t do when He chose what to put in their bag.
As my friend Joan sums up so beautifully: “they just don’t seem to know the same master, do they?” Reading The Message Bible as a devotional, I hear in the Master’s reaction to the one bagger this link between knowing the Giver and our willingness to fearlessly go for it:
“That’s a terrible way to live! It’s criminal to live cautiously like that!... Take the (one bag) and give it to the one who risked the most.”
Mat 25:26-28
That’s what I see in Margarita and Barb. A deep security in the Father’s love. So much so that even into their 70’s, they act like two kids playing with their Father’s bag of goodies, sewing and drawing funny faces on perfectly imperfect dolls so kids might have that same security. So they might know the Perfect One. And the Lord keeps sending bags their way because I think He knows that they already know – nothing is wasted with God.
Not.
A.
Thing.
OUR MARCH MISSION CHALLENGE
So, our mission this month is simple. In your mission pack, you have three equipping pieces: a square sticker that says Nothing Wasted with God; a recycled, poorly-cut round Nothing-W sticker; and, 30 small dots. Begin on March 1st -- day one -- with the large round imperfect sticker. Put it on the top of a pad of paper or a journal. Write down this question:
What has the Lord already put in my perfectly imperfect hands?
Write one answer below that question as the first on your list. Use those tiny dots to do it again on days two through 31. Pray each day that the Lord would nudge you to take a risk, go out on a limb, trust.
If the Lord puts something on your heart, pull out that fancy square sticker. Notice how the image reflects something poured into an empty vessel. The Lord in you. Notice how the “d” in “wasted” is intentionally tilted to allow some of the contents to flow out. Rather than leave us drained, notice how the “investment” continues to fill us and others in God’s time [the hour glass]. Put that sticker on the front of a blank notebook. Pray. Seek Godly counsel. Talk to others. Make a plan. Invest.
I’m guessing The Happy Grandma’s list might have looked like this in 2017 when they started:
- A sewing machine
- A pattern that has been sitting in a drawer for five years [A woman who was making dolls to comfort others published the pattern in a sewing magazine for anybody to use. The story touched Barbara. God brought the buried pattern to her mind in His time. It wasn’t wasted.]
- A love of fabric [In the 1980’s, Margarita worked for a Puerto Rican fabric manufacturer for 5 challenging years as a single mom juggling life and faith. She had no idea how God would use that decades later. He didn’t waste it. 100% cotton is le major! Just ask her.]
- The ability to sew [Barbara’s mom taught her to sew as a teen. She rebelled and then picked it up again later in life. She had no idea how God would use that decades later. Both in her relationship her mom and what she’d later be doing with the talent.]
- A retirement community neighbor who ran a craft mission to raise funds for a church: Margarita and Barbara started showing up with their sewing machines and making Komfort Kuddlies for a church mission. Eventually, the demand was so large, they spent more time sewing alone than with the original group. The rest is history.
- Compassion for hurting children [Barbara stuggled with fear as a teen. She walked the neighborhood streets alone at night to calm her fear. A stranger kept showing up in red car to ask if she was OK. Eventually, he took her to a safe home where she didn’t have to be alone. She’d be the first one to tell you… don’t get in a car with a stranger! She marvels at how God protected her and comforted her. He didn’t waste this. The Lord’s comfort is at the heart of her desire to bless others].
- Friends who had stuff to donate but didn’t know how sew
- Access to a worldwide mission that was already sending stuff to kids in need worldwide
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