cleaning and knitting, and not in that order!

Is it really the middle of January? Often times I feel as though I am playing catchup with life that just keeps speeding by while I struggle to catch up. I think that is part of the reason I enjoy those infrequent totally quiet days where things just mosey by at a pace I am much more comfortable with.  Today while i was driving along in  my car I started thinking about all the cupboards and closets in our house that hide all sorts of weird odds and ends and things I don't need or use. I could think of dozens and dozens of things I could either give or throw away and I made a decision that as soon as bible study is over (this week) I am going to begin to empty out those cupboards and drawers and in the one back bedroom of the house I am going to start putting the piles...one will be give away, one throw away and one...well, maybe there won't be a third but you get the idea. I am so tired of the clutter and useless stuff that I either haven't used in years or have never used or will never use again.  I think its kind of symbolic of starting a new year because every single January I get the urge to start ridding the house of the "stuff" that just uses up space and makes me feel bad for not cleaning, dusting or otherwise attending to it in some way or another.  I can't wait to dig in! Gone will be the coats I never wear, maybe someone less fortunate than I (since I am somewhat of a coat hoarder) can get some use out of some of those garments I never wear. I will have to share my tube pan and cheesecake pan with the girls since I don't want them all the way gone and may want to borrow them as soon as they are out of my house...you just never know when you want to make a good bundt cake...although I can count on less than one hand the times I have done just that in almost 30 years!!!

When I was in kindergarten I was taught how to knit. It was in the days of little red schoolhouses (yes, thats what mine was) and in the days when phonics were the way you learned to spell and denilian was the way to learn to write. I loved school , actually, I loved school for all the years I went, attending 2 years of kindergarten, 12 years of school and 3 years of college. LOVED IT!!!! You see I am a learner, I love to learn and try new things. Not daring new things, just new things.  After all those years, lets see, about 45 years to be exact, I could still remember my teacher telling me while teaching me to knit ~ needle under, yarn around, finger on the point, slip it off....I repeated that to myself each and every stitch I ever knitted and so although I knew the basic stitch I never learned any more than that and I never learned how to cast stitches on. My mom taught me how to crochet, sew, cross stitch, paint by number (ok no teaching but I sure loved her buying me those kits) and who knows what else....she also allowed me to knit but I always required her to put the stitches on.  Recently I have been on a quest to re-learn how to knit. I bought a little kit complete with needles and all kinds of goodies and a book that teaches you and after MANY MANY MANY starts and stops I am finally on the road to knitting and purling. Its quite fun. I hope to get good enough to make something someone can wear some day but right now I just want it to look like the picture says it should! I am amazed at how hard it is to make it look right and how easy it is to drop a stitch or miss a pattern or even forget what in the world you were doing!  I have ripped out tons and tons of knitting, rerolling it into a ball and starting over, my husband saying "oh no it was so pretty!" but you see, I could see the flaws in my knitting, the mistakes and I didn't want them in there, I want perfection, and so I practice practice practice....How like us as women to see the flaws when looking at something, like ourselves, and how like men (like my husband anyway) to see the beauty in spite or maybe because of the flaws. I sit and look and look for mistakes, for the stitch I missed or didn't do right and he just sees the hard work I put into it and thinks its amazing. I am grateful that the Lord isn't like me, knitting away at the tapestry of my life and when finding mistakes, ripping it out and starting over! OUCH!!! I don't claim to know how He does what He does to heal us but I do know, from how He has healed and keeps healing me, He causes me to locate the spot and then he begins to knit something beautiful and unique there, something originally unintended perhaps but because of my own choices and free will, its there, a missed stitch causing a huge hole or a misplaced purl where a knit was supposed to be, causing a lump where there is supposed to be smooth....He slowly and gently (and sometimes not so slowly or gently) begins to show me what it is that is wrong, what it is that needs fixing, that He wants to heal and the thing is, He doesn't just take some random yarn and wrap and wrap to seal up the hole, nope, He gets the crochet hook in there and He begins to pick up the missed stitch, slowly weaving it in until it comes up to the knitting needle where it was intended to be in the first place, or, He takes that spot and begins, with beautiful and brightly colored yarn, to weave an intricate flower of unrivaled beauty, because He not only wants you to remember that place of healing but for you and others to see the beauty of it and learn from it, to be healed themselves from that beautiful place belonging only to you.  Maybe He takes that lump and creates a whole new stitch, a whole new look and you don't even recognize it when you are done but it is beautiful and original and wonderfully unique.  Yes, I want perfection in my knitting and thats alright, but as I learn this new craft I am also learning that the Lord isn't like me at all, He has so much more grace for me than I do for me! Thank heavens for that huh?

Thank you Lord for your heavenly knitting of my soul and spirit and for using even the broken places in my life to glorify yourself!