A Pile of Yarn

My crochet project just wasn’t going right.  But I kept working on it, row after row, becoming more and more dissatisfied with the way it looked.  Several days in, I bagged it and began the task of unraveling all my labor.  

I now had a pile of yarn. 

I was using a stitch that was new to me, and I hadn’t realized I needed to go two numbers higher in the size of the hook.  I decided to try again, so I researched that stitch and some ideas offered to make it work.  As I began the process of creating again with a larger hook, I kept glancing at the pile of yarn.  My thoughts turned to our lives.  Sometimes we become undone and end up in a pile of regrets and emotions and are seemingly useless just like that pile of yarn.  

Perhaps you’ve spent several years in a marriage that just never seemed to appease the longings of your heart.  Did you just bag it?  In certain circumstances, that is necessary.  Or did you take the time to unravel the acute issues, find a good counselor, change some habits, learn better ways of communication, and have a partner that was willing to try again with new skills?  Having gone through that together creates a beautiful, finished design that can satisfy the yearnings of both your hearts.  

Maybe your pile contains a lot of debt.  It’s tough to work through that.  It takes effort, determination and a lot of control to produce a healthy financial record.  But the outcome is so worth it.  There are many varieties of piles, drugs, gambling, pornography.  But with patience and focus, that useless pile can develop into a productive, fruitful life.  

Some people just seem to come into life with pristine skeins of yarn that generate an exquisite design that never needs unraveling.  Irritating, aren’t they?  Others of us commence our lives with a pile of yarn, some of it threadbare.  But we have a God that specializes in fashioning one-of-a-kind restorations out of worthless yarn.  

My pile of yarn seems to be working out rather well this time. 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!”   

2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)