Reminded to Trust

Last spring I knew my job was going to end for the summer.  I had looked forward to time home to spend with my family.   Money would be tight, but experience had taught me that God would meet our needs.  As a proclamation of faith I cut a memory verse out my daughters Sunday school paper and stuck it up on the fridge.  “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19)   To be honest, I had a few rough moments when I said “Please do it, don’t mock my faith.”  Yet again and again I had the opportunity to look at the verse on the fridge and say “Yes, you did say you would, didn’t you.”  During this time I leisurely looked for a summer job, only to find out that the job I expected to return to was gone. This was when the not so leisurely, somewhat panicked job search began. While working, I felt pretty self-sufficient.  I met needs and wants too.  Now God was teaching me an important lesson about trust, and His ability to meet my needs.  Trust is not an easy lesson to learn, it looks simple on paper, but it is hard not to panic when the fridge is getting bare and kids are outgrowing clothes. 

At the grocery store near our home, you have to put a quarter in the cart to unlock it from the rest in the corral.  Recently, I arrived at the store only to realise I had left my quarter on the dresser.  What a pain, I had no other change, and without a quarter I’d have to carry my groceries in the shopping baskets the store provides.  I don’t mind using baskets when I only need a couple of items, but I needed a full grocery order.  As I walked toward the store feeling a sense of defeat, I looked and there was a cart sitting with a quarter in it.  Someone had left it behind.  That just doesn’t happen.  It is a discount store, and people who shop at discount stores always take their cart back to get the quarter.  It's in their nature, I know, because I am one.   Yes, the cart was a need, the need  was met.  As I went through the store I thought how again and again over the summer God had met our needs.  I didn’t always see it at the time in my uptight state, but needs were met.  Friends had passed on their kid’s out-grown clothes, odd jobs had come up, and an unknown person had even left a gift card in the mailbox to help with back to school.  The cart was another gentle reminder that God was faithful to His promise. 

My lesson during this has certainly been trust.  I am definitely a work in progress.  I have also had many opportunities to teach my children about the difference between a need and a want.  Much of what we think we need is really what we want.  We are teaching our kids to see things on a bigger scale.  Since the food crisis in the Horn of Africa has been drawn to our attention we have had many discussions in our home.  Comparatively, my job crisis is insignificant.  

I am still faithfully searching for a job; the sense of panic is growing less, and I am trusting a little more.  The uptight feeling comes back here and there, but I am learning to say, as the boy’s father said in Mark 9:24 “I do believe; help me to overcome my unbelief!”  
    

Yarn Potential

                 My experience as a Mom has taught me that it's good to find activities that are relaxing outlets to preserve good mental health. When I am stressed or need a mental break from meeting the needs of children, I knit and crochet.  Almost daily I find time to spend with yarn for one project or another.  It is a good way to relax before bed so I can clear my mind of the day’s activities.  That way when I do my before bed Bible reading, I can make sense of what I am reading and even remember what I have read.  Being creative with yarn is a wonderful stress buster.

                Yarn is a great medium to work with.  There are oodles of different types.  Different colours, weights, some are self- striping, some are furry.  A ball of yarn is so much more than just a ball of yarn.  It has so much potential; it can be anything.  Mind you, sock yarn will never make up into a big bulky sweater, but would make a lovely light sweater.  Bulky furry yarn would make horrible socks.  There are purposes that fit the type of yarn better, but the possibilities are still endless.

                I was recently working with some pretty wool self-striping yarn. It was bulky and warm and perfect for a scarf pattern I wanted to try.  It was sold in bulk in bags of 10, and although the balls were from the same dye lot, they all looked remarkably different from each other.  As I began working with the yarn, I realised there were colours hidden in the middle of the balls I didn’t know were there.  Originally I thought it was purples and pinks, but as the colours changed there were blues, browns, greys, and orange.  I began to knit faster and faster so I could see how the stripes changed from one shade to the next. I desperately wanted to get to the end so I could see how it would all turn out.  What I thought would be a scarf that was striped pink and purple turned out to have shades of every colour.

                So much like life, isn’t it?  We have a tendency to want to speed through certain stages of life to see how it all turns out.  Will things be OK?  Will I ever get a job? Will this child ever sleep through the night?  Unlike my approach, God doesn’t knit faster and faster.  He doesn’t share my impatient, anxious, foot-tapping response.  He keeps on at His pace, doing things in His time.  Just like my scarf that turned out so different than I had expected, our lives often turn out much different than we imagine.   The pink and purple scarf I had imagined would have been pretty, but not nearly as interesting as the scarf with the surprise stripe of orange or vivid blue.  God colours our lives with unexpected events and friendships.  His way of knitting together our experiences often have much better outcomes than we expect.

              God see’s each of us like those balls of yarn; such great potential, each with a purpose they are suited for.   “ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) Our response to His invitation to follow Him needs to be accompanied with trust and willingness to allow Him to “knit the yarn of our life” into the pattern He chooses.   I’ve heard it said, “If you don’t know what God wants you to do, keep doing the 80% you know He wants you to do, the rest will take care of itself.”  Looking back over my life, I see again and again how God has orchestrated events and seasons to accomplish His purposes. At the time it usually wasn’t that clear, just a step of trust in the middle of uncertainty.  Reading through a knitting pattern it is hard to imagine what the end product will be, but as it is knitted the garment takes shape into something unique with a special purpose.  Continue to trust God as you follow Him; remember He is making your life into a beautiful creation.