I love yarn. I may in fact love it too much. This past summer I went to a tent sale with some of the women in my family and I came home with two large bagfuls. It was glorious! It was also a lot. One reason I love yarn is the sense of purpose and promise for the future that is found as the yarn weaves through my fingers and onto a hook or needles.
The truth is yarn is expensive so going to the yarn sale was a smart choice financially. The trouble with buying ahead though is there is a tendency to store and forget. Then you buy elsewhere and wind up overtime amassing a huge amount of yarn that will never get used. It’s out of sight and completely forgotten until one day while digging around for that old crockpot you find a box that’s ten years old filled with something you might have wanted to use someday.
This year it’s different. This year I reclaimed some shelves and put the yarn front and centre for me to use over the winter. My husband says it looks like a yarn store downstairs. I say it looks like a winter filled with projects and potential. For the first time ever a yarn stash that might be completely used.
The truth is when we don’t pay attention to things they just sit, undeveloped and unexplored. Faith is a lot like yarn that way. When we don’t pay attention to it, when we don’t study or grow, we sit undeveloped and uninspired. I don’t want my faith to be that way. Everyday when I wake up I set aside time to sit in the Word. I pray. I meditate. I seek out.
You might be thinking ‘but it’s easy for you…’ and I would say some days maybe but often it’s a choice. I choose to drag my tired body from it’s bed. I choose to sink into the text. I choose to try to find the words needed to connect with God. Faith is a gift but what good is a gift if you don’t open it and explore it? What good is a gift if you don’t use it?
Our faith is not unlike the yarn with which I knit. As we weave various parts of our lives together something beautiful can come out of it. The trick is picking up the threads of faith and weaving something out of them. If we do not work on it, it will not grow.
How will you work on your faith this fall? How will you let God work in you?