A Stitch in Crochet, a Closer Walk with Jesus

One of my last years teaching third grade I bit the bullet and introduced the class to weaving with yarn, à la Indian crafts. It had its challenges, some children taking after their teacher who suffers from dyslexia for directionality, but thank God for parent volunteers! They made all the difference in the world, making what would have been a disaster a much more manageable project.

But a strange thing happened as I walked the children through the weaving ... I fell in love with the rhythmic handling of the yarn the weaving entailed. Why not try crocheting again? I found myself wondering. Twice in the course of my life friends had encouraged me to "give it a go", but with church, family, and work, although I found it intriguing, I couldn't seem to dedicate the time I needed to actually delve into the craft.

But now, children gone, less demands on my time ... I have begun a love affair with crocheting. Many afghans, scarves, and kitchen towels later, I decided to add to my repertoire a flower-designed table runner.

YouTube has been my teacher, and though it walked me successfully through my previous projects, I just couldn't get the table runner off the ground. I looked at one video after another and I still couldn't get past row 2. I was missing something. Dennis suggested I just give up but I really, really wanted to learn how to crochet these flowers. So, in quiet desperation, I finally asked my Dad, as in my Heavenly Father.

"Lord, You say You give wisdom to those who ask. And YOU are all wisdom. Can You help me learn how to do row three? I'm stuck. Please open my eyes to what I need to do." I kid you not. I heard in my spirit, "Watch the blue lady's tutorial."

Now, I had seen this video but had passed it by. It was a lady showing how to make the pattern I wanted using blue thread. But it was in Russian and the translated captions were a little "off"--apparently the Russian word for "single crochet" translates as "air loop". Get my drift? I didn't want to mess with the translation difficulties. But I did what I felt God told me and voilà, despite the vocabulary differences, the blue lady showed me how to do row three!

The picture shown is of my project before I took it apart to redo--I had made an error on the first row and was glad for the excuse to redo it. I felt I needed to devote more attention to keeping the tension of each crochet stitch uniform--the thicker yarns I have used before this have been more forgiving of imperfections. But I am still reeling from God's telling me, "Watch the blue lady's tutorial." In a day when world-wide problems affecting a myriad of countries abound, God listens to and answers a little, insignificant, totally unimportant prayer? Wow. Just--wow.

His Word is true. He does answer prayer, regardless of its importance in the great scheme of things. He does care about every hair on your head.

I thought I was just learning to crochet--but I was also learning to walk a little closer to Jesus.

"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7).

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (Matthew 7:7).

"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1).

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Matthew 10:29-31.)