One Stitch at a Time

One stitch at a time. It can be tedious.

Cross-stitching a gift for a new baby on the way. Something special. Praying for the baby, one stitch at a time. Listening to God for this baby. This precious baby.

Relationships build slowly. One step at a time. One word. One gesture. As the years pass, a picture emerges. A friendship that spans time. A sibling love. A romantic love. One kindness at a time.

‘For as much as you did something good for someone else, you did it for me,’ Jesus said, loosely paraphrased. I usually think of those marginalised individuals who need help: we reach out to the Christ in them.

But just now I realised it’s all of our relationships. Each of us needs one another. This is how Jesus is building his church.

One stitch at a time. It can be tedious.

Pure Gold

So I picked up a long-neglected cross-stitch and resumed where I’d left off a few weeks ago. As I worked, I realised that I’d faithfully stitched a golden trumpet, thinking I was using two shades of gold when, in fact, turns out I used the same shade twice. Hmm.

There are a few other wee anomalies so far, as there always are despite my best efforts to count carefully. 

‘It’s the mistakes that make it special,’ Don remarked, saving the day. 

Then I thought about the patterns of our lives. They don’t always – maybe ever – work out as we thought they would. But it’s as we offer the goofs and glitches and yes, even the heartaches, to the Creator God that he is revealed through those thin places where we messed up, or where life dealt us a blow, slightly altering the shades or shapes and giving us a depth of truth and understanding, love and compassion we would otherwise have never attained.

God has a plan, a plan for good, but if/when it goes awry through something in this fallen world, he reworks it to be uniquely beautiful.  Nothing can separate us from the love of our Saviour. Nothing.

And so that trumpet now is pure gold. Better than planned.

Scottish Summer

A typical Scottish summer’s (any season’s) day. Changeable.

Sitting in the conservatory doing a cross-stitch, I was looking out towards the garden and the clear blue sky overhead sang a summer song. I became aware of an erratic drumbeat starting softly and then crescendo-ing on the windows behind me. Rain.

Our perspective is critical to our understanding. While not unaware of storms raging round us, we wait in expectation to see what God will do. We need all our senses primed and alert. Now is not the time to be caught napping. 

God’s ways are not our ways, but his promises are true and we know that he is always at work, weaving a beautiful pattern to reveal the golden thread of his glory through whatever events overtake us. Let’s sharpen our supernatural senses and be bold in prayer and declaration.

Listen

Last summer, while awaiting the birth of my first grandchild, I spent an hour every afternoon sitting in the conservatory (better light) working on a cross-stitch for this child. As I worked, I listened. I listened in the silence to what God wanted to say about this baby. I wrote down the words or phrases that came to mind and after Felicity was born, I sewed her name and birth date on it and printed out the words God had given me, and gave it to her.

She will be a year old in another month, and this afternoon I looked at the copy I kept of God’s words about this amazing wee miracle. I was astonished at how accurate they are. Why was I astonished? God knew this life before he created her in the womb, and he has loved her forever. 

I don’t believe that Felicity is any better a person because I joined in with God’s thinking about her. But it thrills me to know that he shared his secrets with me before she was even born. And that encourages my faith to keep on listening, keep on believing, keep on asking, keep on expecting. 

God is our loving Father who delights to work with us in this world. He invites us to partner with him but so often we lack the faith and courage to believe that what we feel in our hearts or think in our minds can actually be given to us from our heavenly Father. 

I’m excited again by the possibilities of partnering with our divine King to bring his Kingdom here to earth. And rather than rushing off to do even more great stuff, I hope I’ve got the message: it’s more effective to sit down and listen and agree with His plans.

Wow.