Out of my hands

 

 

Last Saturday evening I was sitting on the couch, knitting happily on a little project I have been working on and thinking to myself how happy I was that I finally have the hang of the pattern…knit 3, purl 1, knit 3…oh sorry…this happens a lot once you get the hang of a pattern or so I am learning….

Except on Saturday night somewhere between a knit and a purl I allowed myself to have non-knit thoughts and boom…I dropped a stitch.

As I tried to fish it back on the needle, it slipped dangerously below several rows and I knew I the sting of truth…pride goeth before the fall.

I googled “How to pick up a dropped stitch” and made matters worse.

So I did what any one in my situation would do who has an ounce of sense. I texted an SOS to one of the experienced knitters at church and made arrangements to meet up with her in the lobby Sunday morning for help.

And by help I mean, I handed her the Ziplock bag with my knitting in it, explained the problem and pattern and took off to get my coffee, because well…if you know me…

With coffee secured, I headed back to the table where she was sorting through the spaghetti of my mess.

She looked up only briefly to shoo me on to go teach my class.

Because as surely as I will have a coffee in my hand, I will also need to make copies five minutes before class starts. I am pretty predictable.

After class, she met me in the hall, showed me the progress and assured me she would have it pulled together after church.

And she did. She fixed the problem and I can proceed with the work that I need to do to finish the project.

And I wonder why it was so easy to hand over a mess I couldn’t fix to someone and not give it another thought. Not once did I argue with her or try to take it back. There was never a moment during Sunday School or church when I was distracted because I was wondering how she was doing. I didn’t care. My mess was in the hands of an expert and I just went on with life.

And I wonder what God thinks of all this marvelous letting go.

Because I have some stuff on my heart. Unraveled and messy stuff that I have absolutely no idea or way or power to fix.

And I hand it over to God, but then I never really release my hands from the bag.

I wonder and ponder and fret how He is going to work it out and make it right. I worry that how He works it out won’t end up looking like the project I had in mind.

The past few weeks I keep running into the same message from teachings to articles to email devotions about how worry is really the sin of unbelief, and the root is a desire to be in control of things.

I’m thinking God just might be telling me to LET GO OF THE BAG….so He can get on with His work…and to TRUST HIM because He knows what He is doing.

In fact, I sense He is telling me to go get my coffee, and make my copies and teach my class; basically do the every day stuff that I am supposed to be doing instead of watch-dogging the ways He is working in areas that look kind of like dropped stitches.

Oh there will be work to finish, when He hands it back to me…but He will be there to help me with that too.

Maybe you are like me and you have some things that are troubling you. Let’s put them in some sort of “bag” and in prayer, hand them over to God acknowledging that He is the only one that can fix the mess. And then let’s purposefully, faithfully, intentionally get busy with the things that are right in front of us that only we can do, exercising complete faith and confidence in Him to do what only He can do.