My Best Dress

A devotional based on Matthew 14:22-31, the story
of Jesus walking on the water.

Today my daughter is wearing a pink, A-line sundress. There’s nothing special about it—no details or pretty embroidery. But she twirls around with her little tan arms straight up, like it’s a ball-gown.

No, there’s nothing special about this, dress except I made it for her. I finished it yesterday.

Actually, I made that pink dress over a series of Sunday afternoons, and somehow I’ve hit upon a rewarding, relaxing way to spend an hour once a week.

I suspect that there are only two kinds of families in America: busy and superbusy, and my family is no different. Our typical week, now that summer "vacation" has started, involves four swimming lessons, five swim team practices, one round of golf, two baseball games, two baseball practices, Sunday School, church, recreational swimming, trips to thepark, trips to the library, and the list goes on. Sundays are often the only day that I don’t have to chauffeur someone somewhere. It’s the only day that there aren’t more demands than my time permits.

Let the record show that I am not a seamstress. I bought a sewing machine five years ago in a fit of domestic energy—and it sat in my closet through two more babies, three moves, a tax preparation class and graduate school. But this summer, my daughter is committed to wearing only dresses. The economical way to appease her is to buy a simple pattern, a few yards of clearance fabric, and make a few.

Women who have grown up sewing may find knocking out a sleeveless, collar-less, waist-less dress an accomplishment of laughable simplicity. But I didn’t grow up sewing. I bought the pattern and material, spread the instructions out and started to cry. That was the first Sunday.

An hour passed as I read the instructions and my learn-to-sew book. I circled my pattern pieces, I packed up the unused sewing machine and my shoebox of thread and scissors, my hour all used up.

The next week, I got out the machine right after Sunday dinner. I cleared the dishes and sticky-tacked the instructions to the wall, and started cutting fabric.

Every few minutes my daughter scrambled up on the chair and demanded a report on my progress. I told her things I barely understood, like, "This is the front facing."

"What’s that?"

"I don’t know yet."

I cut the rest of the pieces out. Whew. An hour went by as quickly as a minute.

The next Sunday I got ready for church thinking of the pieces of pink fabric folded neatly in the closet, still pinned to the pattern pieces, just in case Iforgot which was the front and which was the back.

After Sunday dinner the family scattered to various activities—reading, ball game watching, a friend’s house. I got out the machine, consulted the manual and loaded the bobbin. Wow—then I envisioned myself placidly stitching through yards of white satin for my daughter’s wedding gown someday. She’s four now—I figure I have 20-25 years to learn, God willing.

Recently my years are passing more quickly, so twenty years seems like barely enough time. I sewed something termed stay-stitching, and ironed a little. Then I sewed the shoulders together and suddenly the pieces of pink fabric began to look like a dress.

That hour passed even more quickly than the last—and this time when I packed away my machine, I could hardly wait until the next Sunday.

And so it goes, every Sunday afternoon, for an hour or so. While the machine is humming and I’m reading (and re-reading and re-reading) the instructions, I’m relaxing to a level that I seldom do these days. For an hour I think about anything and everything. Our next move, financing college for three kids, how to encourage prudence in my nine-year-old, whether the broccoli is too far gone to slip into tonight’s dinner. I fix a cup of tea and delight myself in sipping at it as I read and sew, read and sew. The laundry isn’t caught up and I probably ought to dust. But to me, resting on the Sabbath means not doing the things that occupy my attention during the week. It means doing something for the joy of it. So instead I set up the machine on the table and sew.

Yesterday when I mastered the zipper, I felt like throwing a party. The top isn’t quite even, and the bottom tab sticks out a little, but it works. And if I got out the ruler, I’d probably discover that the them isn’t exactly straight. The zipper in a little uneven, like I said, and the armholes are a bit big.

Already I’m thinking of next peaceful Sunday hour, the flower-print fabric that will become the second dress. She dances up to me and hugs me and says, "It’s my best dress."

I tell her, "Mine, too."

Author: Jennifer Smith-Morris
Date: 2/18/00