*All photos are original designs by The King’s Daughters

I can’t even remember the exact starting point but I do know that it was 50 plus years ago. My earliest memory of it was around the age of 5. I just had this thing and it drove me. I loved to sew.

Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in a family of 7 required us to stretch our means and forced me to think in more of a creative direction. With not a lot of finances or space available for anything that was not absolute necessities I learned early on to look at ordinary things with a different viewpoint.

We never had a fabric stash, our sewing room was an old tin that held a few basic sewing essentials; A few old spools of thread, needles tucked tightly in a battered pin cushion and a few bits and pieces of elastic. If we had a little extra money to buy fabric we used it up, there wasn’t any waste.

I would sew anything that I could get my hands on. With just a needle and a spool of thread, I would repair clothing, under garments and turn old, worn out socks into beautiful ball gowns for my Barbie dolls. Even after all these years I still love the feeling of doing it the ‘old fashion way’, by hand, stitch by stitch.

Throughout the years my sewing skills have developed through the gracious gifting of my Lord, repetitive practice and through the therapeutic love of it. It seemed to me that at every turn of events in my life, my Lord would stretch my ability and gift me with a new avenue through sewing. I have tested and conquered most areas of sewing that there is, but there has been this one thing that has seemed to follow me wherever I am in life. It has become one of my greatest challenges and greatest pleasure. It is designing and making little girl clothes.

I started designing clothes for my daughter when she was a little girl, and now that has rolled over to my granddaughters. There is just something wonderful about seeing fabric and having the creative part of your mind totally take over. I see fabric and in my mind it comes to life and I can see what it can become with just some snipping, pinning into place and some swift sewing.

Years ago , for or a short period of time we had the fashion station on our cable TV and my daughter and I would spent as much time as possible watching it. It constantly featured fashion shows, one after the other. All of the top fashion designers and their one of a kind designs would walk the runway and we were mesmerized by it. We would sketch and record our favorites as they inspired and motivated us into action. I understood just a little of what went on in the workmanship of these garments.

The one of a kind designs came at a costly price, some of the dresses ran into the thousands of dollars, and still more into the hundreds of thousands. Each piece was made with the finest quality of cloth in the world, using very costly supplies with painstakingly craftsmanship. Attention to every detail was sewn into each stitch, causing an array of grand, spectacular garments. These extravagant dresses are worn only by the rich and famous. Movie stars parade in front of the camera on Oscars night, and for some, seeing the women display the stunning dresses as they walk the red carpet was the pinnacle of the evening.

But no matter how beautiful the dress may be, how plain and simple, or how complex, it was the label that gave it it’s greatest worth. The name that was stamped onto the back of the garment was what the buyer desired above all.

We live in a world that dictates to us every single second of every single day; what we should look like, what kind of clothes we should be wearing, what we should be doing, what we should be driving and where we should live. We beat ourselves up day after day and complain about the way we look and our lack of whatever we feel we should have. We can never measure up, we can never be good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough or strong enough, and let’s just face it, we will never be a beautiful one of a kind design.

Or can we?

Do you not know that you truly are ‘one of a kind’ made by the Designer of the universe. From the very womb of your own mother the Grand Designer formed you with His own beautiful hands, exactly into what He desired you to be. There is only one YOU and it is He who determines what color your eyes will be, what color your hair will be, if you have freckles or a birth mark. His perfect design decides whether or not you will be short or tall, small framed or large, big feet or little feet, every little detail about your physically being is all up to Him.

When we become His, heart and soul, He puts His stamp on us and we become beautiful and blameless, bearing the mark of the Most High upon our hearts. We become a priceless, ‘one of a kind’ design in Christ!

Ps. 139 tells us what every girl longs to hear. “I will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are your works and that my soul know full well.”

We often times fix our gaze on the wonderful parts of this beloved Psalm,the part that tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and rightly so. But can we just back up a little bit here? Let’s take a closer look at this passage, and look at the one word that tells us what our response should be to our Lord for forming us in such a spectacular , special way. The word is praise. Do we praise God for how we are formed? Do we praise Him for how He made us, how we look? How He designed our eyes, hair, nose, mouth and body? The Psalmist said that God’s works are marvelous! Look this little gem of a word up and be amazed!

It means causing great wonder; extraordinary; extremely good or pleasing; splendid. The synonyms for this word are: amazing, astounding, astonishing, awesome, breathtaking, sensational, remarkable, spectacular, stupendous, stunning, excellent, splendid, wonderful, magnificent, superb, glorious . . . . .

Beautiful friend, that’s YOU!

Are you hearing this? This is how God made you. So why would we habitually complain and grumble against God? Every single thing that God created got His seal of approval, after each created thing “God said that it was good.”

We are not believing God when He said that “it was good” when He created us in our mother’s womb, “fearfully and wonderfully”.

Stop right now dearly beloved! Retrain your thought pattern, exchange the lies that the world has told you about yourself, exchange those lies that the enemy whispers in your ear day after day. Replace that lie with the truth of God, that you are truly made in the image of Him, and you truly are marvelous! And loved! And His! A one of a kind design!

And praise Him!

The King’s Daughters

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;^[b]
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.                                                                                                   Psalm 139:13-14