"knitting"

Yes, I know I've ignored you for too long! I was just about ready to give up. Almost done with blogging, selling crafts, just about ready to close up shop and do something different. I thought I would start volunteering and teaching a women's study (and I still might), but I was struck with this analogy in church today and wanted to share it.

Our town has a yarn shop and I always thought it would be kind of cool to learn to knit (coffee clatch girls don't be surprised if you each get a scarf sometime soon!) I've taken 2 classes and am almost finished with my 1st scarf. It's a lot of fun, but I'll probably never be as good as a friend of mine in our old neighborhood who can watch an entire swim meet while she knits the whole time!

So, in church today we're learning about the sermon on the mount and I get this analogy about knitting and how it compares with our life and our relationship with Jesus. Crazy timing, I know!

Imagine, a knitter picking up His first skein of yarn. He casts on his first 22 stitches onto the needle and those stitches are the base for the entire project. Without those 1st basic stitches nothing else can be done- that's our relationship with Jesus. And, then he starts stitching. Some of those stitches glide on the needle with ease, but then some of the stitches are a "little" too tight and extra care has to be spent to make sure that the stitch is done correctly. Sometimes a stitch is totally missed and now there is a whole in the project. I compare that with the life Jesus has planned for me and how I miss the opportunity he presented to me. So, the knitter can go on and leave the hole; it won't totally mess up the project and you may not even notice it, but the knitter will know that the hole is there. So, the knitter knows he doesn't want this project to have an open hole and he does the only logical thing; rips out the stitches, to the point where he can redo the project and fix the hole. I think that's where Jesus teaches us the lesson or brings the opportunity around one more time for us to grab on so we get the life he inteded us to have.
In knitting there is one yarn - a beginning and an ending. The whole project is completed with one piece of yarn that is woven in and around and can make all sorts of beautiful things. I think that is so much like the way Jesus weaves our lives. How many times have you had so many coincidences in your life that you think that just couldn't happen without Jesus -He is the knitter and we are merely the yarn.