My eyes open as I wake from sleep. The world is hazy, foggy, and soft until I put on my glasses and bring my world into focus. I stumble into the kitchen, let Gunner out and make myself a cup of cappuccino. The coffee slowly wakes my other senses, I feel the warmth of the cup, I smell the wonderful aroma of coffee, and as I swallow that first sip, my waking up is complete. I look over at my table, my knitting bag awaits me, so does my phone which will play Joyce Meyers for me as I have my morning time, knitting with God. I recently took up the art of knitting and have found it to reflect so much in my life. I have to take it slow, I can only knit one stitch at a time, I can’t rush ahead, and at first my project looks haphazard and ungainly, but as I continue the pattern and knit the yarn together, I begin to see something that not only functions, but is beautiful in its own way. Learning how to knit has helped me become better at teaching, my horsemanship, my relationships, and improved my view of the world. As I learn this new skill, I have days I’m frustrated with myself, days I don’t understand what I’m doing, and then days it all comes together and makes sense. That sounds a lot like life, Doesn’t it?

I walk to my table, I lift out the new skein of yarn. It’s going to be a hat for my sister, Chauna. I smile as I think of her. She is beautiful, she has long dark hair, a darker complexion than I do, and her smile can light up a room. I think the colors I picked will accent her coloring, and her brown eyes. I pick up my winder, attach it to the table, and begin the process of winding the yarn onto my thumb to make a ball. I hold Chauna in my heart and think of her as I begin my project. I do this for all my projects, I hope they bring joy and smiles to the people I knit for. This is one of my favorite parts of knitting. The anticipation of starting a new project, the feel of the yarn as it slides over my hands, the formation of the yarn ball, and the love I feel for the person I’m knitting for. At first it’s ungainly, wobbly, and looks like a mess, but it quickly takes formation and I smile as I notice the variations in color of the hand dyed yarn as the ball forms.

As I finish my yarn ball, I want to tell you how God works through my learning how to knit. I chose to listen to Joyce Meyers, who is a preacher on Spotify, the sermon that queued up for today was titled, “Ways the Devil Deceives Us”, I was listening to part 5 which was about Gods time. And His time is not like our time, the changes he makes in our lives are slow, but over time we see a picture coming into focus, and the mess we thought we were in slowly untangles and we see the changes and how it has shaped our world. All of this swirls round and around in my head, and finally comes to rest. In our lives we may not see the whole picture, what we are experiencing at the moment may seem a hot mess, but over time we grow, we take little steps towards our goals, and the picture looses the fuzziness, becomes sharper, less chaotic, and more complete and eventually we find that our journey does make sense and our lives are woven together like strands of yarn, alone we are weak and boring, but together we make something beautiful.