The Single Quilter

 My nana is an amazing seamstress. She made many of the clothes my mom and her sisters wore when they were growing up and also made many dresses for me and my sister, too.

 But her specialty is quilts. For my tenth birthday she made me a beautiful quilt that was mainly white with flowers many different colors of the rainbow, calling it "Allie's Secret Garden". When I graduated from high school she made me another quilt for my dorm room with my favorite hues of blues, greens, purples, and some yellow and pink. It is one of my greatest treasures.

 For a long time I have wanted to make quilts, especially baby quilts, but my writing has always been more important and fabric is expensive. 

 So instead, I began to dream of the time when I would have my own children and I would make them baby quilts. A gray and sea green pattern for my son. A floral quilt with many shades of pink and white for my little girl.

 But I began to wonder if I would ever have children.

 I am almost twenty-two and still very single. Though I am still young and I still have plenty of time, somewhere there is this fear that I will never have children and I will never make them quilts.

 But why do I have to wait for my own children? What if God wants me to fulfill that desire in another way?

 If five or ten years passes and I still find myself single, I could still make baby quilts. I could make them as baby shower gifts. I could donate them to crisis pregnancy centers. 

 I do not want my single years to be wasted pining for what I wanted my life to be like. Instead I want to be a woman who embraces the life God has given her.

 Whether it is for my own children or other babies in my church or community that I bless, I will make baby quilts someday.