Unraveling

A few years ago I received a prayer shawl as a gift. I loved to sit quietly in my comfy chair with the shawl wrapped around me knowing my friend prayed for me as she knit. I even loved the idea of making a shawl for someone else.

I dusted off my knitting needles and headed down to momma’s house to get a refresher course from an expert knitter. We sat at the table with my pattern and she patiently reminded me of the skill she taught me so long ago.

In the early morning hours I sat quietly, knitting and praying with each stitch. When I paused to count stitches I realized somewhere along the way I made a mistake. With a gentle pull it only took a few minutes to unravel all my stitches. What was beginning to look like a prayer shawl was now a messy pile of string on the floor.

Ugh! I wanted to toss the pile into the trash, but my momma also taught me to keep trying. So I took a deep breath, let go of my frustration and started again.

My pile of string is slowly, stitch by stitch becoming something.

Unraveling is a strange thing. It only takes a few minutes to undo what’s taken hours to create.

Lately I’ve experienced some unraveling in my life. Like God gently pulling yarn to undo what’s been done. Honestly it doesn’t feel so good. Because maybe it’s something I thought was true all my life, or some thing I’ve held close for far too long. And letting go means trusting more. Trusting the unraveling is good… trusting God won’t give up and leave me like a pile of unraveled yarn to be tossed away in frustration.

Knitters unravel to fix their mistakes.
God unravels to redeem.

He gently pulls at the mistakes and circumstances in our lives until we’ve become exactly who He created us to be. This takes trusting God is good and all His works are good.

Even in the unraveling.

Listen sister… you are fearfully and wonderfully made! God doesn’t work around our mistakes, He works through them.

He redeems it all by unraveling it and reworking it into beauty… pure perfectly knit beauty!

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
Psalm 139:14-15 NIV