For you yarnies out there – skein. There.
This morning I woke up to a text from my oldest daughter – something to the effect of ‘I’m sure you’ll find out in the morning, but Mabel (our dog) got into your yarn. I tried to pick it up, but I’m tired.’
To any of you who didn’t know, my kids and I are crocheting blankets to gift to an elderly transitional facility – we wanted to bring some warmth and comfort to those going through a challenging end-of-life season. This yarn was supposed to be lovingly woven into something beautiful, but now it’s a heap of jumbled knots intertwined with scattered strands of dog hair (hand over face emoji). 6 am doesn’t like to see this.
My son lovingly asked me if God had a purpose in this, because surely He has a purpose in everything. My initial response was – sin. God doesn’t necessarily cause these things to happen, but He uses all things for good.
Typing this, I’m not 100% sure of the purpose of hours of painstaking untangling of yarn – but I do know that it sparked something.
Sometimes (well, all the time) I want my life to fit into a nice, neat ball – where all the strands stay comfortably in place and everything unravels seamlessly. I want to keep moving forward and don’t want to be inconvenienced by having to untangle knots and try to roll everything back up again.
I don’t like the untangling, the falling apart.
Life is supposed to be a gift, right? Then why is it so hard some days?
We want to do something good with the tools we’ve been given, but then many days things become tangled – sickness, relationships, parenting, jobs.
The old me would have obsessively situated everything back into tight-fitting balls of yarn. Today, I unraveled and began to untie some of the knots before retiring the yarn to a bag to continue on tomorrow.
Many days we feel like we have to conquer and fix everything – today. We feel crushed by the weight of our circumstances and responsibilities. But God isn’t asking us to fix it all today. He’s gently asking us to take some steps towards a solution and then rest in Him. He’ll give us the strength to pick up our circumstances and continue working on them tomorrow (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). He’ll graciously give us the patience, peace, and even joy to settle into surrender – not giving up, but teaming up with the One who is far more capable than we are.
upheld 