Batting and Back-Ups

I have always loved baseball metaphors and now I am falling in love with quilting metaphors. As I was reading this morning, the backing of a quilt is one of the most important pieces. Without the backing, the batting would be exposed and it would be impossible for the quilt to be held together. Many quilters are more concerned with what the top of the quilt looks like and put more thought into that material. It is just like looking as someone and noticing only the external qualities. The material for the backing is just as important and can give beauty to a quilt.

Just as quilts need backing, we also need "back ups" in our lives. We need someone to be there when what doesn't "come out in the wash, comes out in the rinse." We need backing to hold together our "falling apart quilts."

It was interesting that I was thinking about this this morning and in church, the Pastor talked about how we look at people and may tell them that they have beautiful eyes. We never say "You have beautiful eye ducts," when in fact, those eye ducts are the backing that helps to make those eyes work. We need to know what makes things in our lives work. First, we need to know ourselves, be ourselves, and know who are true "back-ups" are. When we let our batting slip away, it won't be pretty.