Happy New Year! I know I’m a little late. The New Year is a few weeks old already and it’s as busy as last year and the year before that! What happened to that resolution about slowing things down and stopping to smell the roses? Long forgotten I daresay. Sigh. But the demands of life are great and therefore we rise to the occasion and meet them head on, so it goes in this post-modern twenty first century.
True to form, when I have some down time I find yarn and either knit or crochet something. One of the things I had determined to do in the New Year was to finish the several projects I had allowed to fall by the wayside in 2014 before beginning something new. Therefore, I pulled out this nearly complete shawl and began to apply the final rows so I could move on. It wasn’t long before I discovered that even though I only had a few rows to knit, I was going to run out of yarn and needed to find more to complete this item. The yarn I am using comes in a hank which needs to be wound into a ball before knitting, so this was the next step in the process before I could truly finish my commitment to complete this garment.
There is a bit of luck involved in rolling a ball up off of a hank of yarn especially if you are doing it manually, which I was. If you are blessed to have a swift and a winder you are in great shape, but rolling by hand can soon turn into a bit of a nightmare, and that is exactly what happened. Within perhaps five short minutes I had succeeded in turning my cute little loop of yarn into a bird’s nest of disaster.
This debacle had me somewhat flustered and irritated and I took a photo and posted it to social media so all my online friends could commiserate with me and pity me. This elicited quite a bit of attention and started me reflecting about how untangling a ball of yarn is a metaphor for life. Indeed as the grueling process of detangling wore on and on and lasted the better part of the day, I came away with numerous insights about those difficult moments in life when nothing seems to be going the way you planned.
A good friend of mine reminded me that these obstacles and challenges we face can remind us that we need to rely on the Lord to do that which we are unable to do alone, and that with the Lord helping us, there is nothing we can’t overcome. This was a great insight and silly as it may seem, allowed me to set my heart on God and ask for his grace as I persevered under this task.
My daughter who was in the other room saw my post on Facebook and pitied me, coming to assist me in the quest for tangle free yarn which led to another insight. Such moments are meant to be shared. When you are facing a challenge that has you all tied up in knots, don’t try to do it alone! We need each other and my daughter’s extra hands made the task progress faster, plus we had good conversation together as we worked.
Another thing that happened was I had to walk away and take a break. Separation is sometimes a very healthy part of a messy process, as long as you don’t give up completely. I was tempted to toss the whole thing in the trash, or grab a scissor and begin hacking it to pieces, but I resisted those urges and went back to the struggle. Never give up. Never surrender!
Throughout the day as I thought I was making progress there were often new loose ends that would appear and throw me a curve. And this is also true of life, as you work one thing out; sometimes you discover new issues you need to address. Whew! After many hours and a lot of patient endurance, my big messy blob of yarn was finally rolled into manageable balls and ready to finish the shawl! Don’t give up, even if your new year finds you facing a difficult task. You will make it through with the Lord’s help, a friend or two and a mindset to finish the work!
