knitting life lessons

It's that time of year again, when the knitting bug bites & all I want to do is curl up in front of the fire with my needles. I'm a "foul-weather" knitter (good one, huh?). I've been working on a little hat, for the latest addition to our family...it's been challenging. It isn't just knitting, but I have a chronic problem of biting off more than I can chew. Why wait til you know what you're really doing to start projects labeled "advanced"? This is only my third project...and it's been getting the better of me from the start. This beautiful yarn came all the way from Connecticut where two sisters have recently started their own business dying yarn. They do a wonderful job, by the way, & I would recommend checking them out at niceandknit.com. Anyway, being the novice that I am, & never having received a real, hand-crafted skein of yarn, I impatiently dove right into this project. Did you know that you have to wind yarn before you start knitting? Sometime during my knitting lessons, I'm pretty sure this was covered. If you don't, you end up with a tangled mess of yarn that takes a long time to unravel. But I was so enamored with this little hat & maryjane booties that I just started knitting from the first end I found. Bad, bad idea. It took me days to untangle it all. Darwin suggested just buying a new skein after watching me painfully & tediously pulling yards & yards of yarn through loops. It was tempting. But this was special yarn, you know? And then, I started the hat. It has a sweet little scalloped edge & the rest is just a garter stitch, so I thought I could tackle it. No less than 12 times ripping out all my work & starting over, I finally figured it out. There's even a youtube video of the project I found (after the tenth time of course). So now, I've been whipping through it & soon, I'll have a charming little hat:).
This project made me think back to my college days. I don't like to quit or give up. Sometimes, I do. But I don't like it. One of the hardest things I've ever done, & it was only done by the grace of God, was quit college halfway through. I don't resent Him for it. It was His perfect plan for my life, & I see a little bit of the "why" now. Had I not, I'd have missed out on a year & a half with my dear family in Illinois. I'd have gone straight from college graduation to Oregon (if the timeline for marriage were still the same). There were some hard lessons I learned on contentment & patience while between college & marriage. Those days were sometimes dark & I didn't understand why He had me do it. I'm sure I still don't know all the reasons why.
But I'm so glad I did. God is greater & stronger & His ways are higher than my ways, & I don't know if I would understand that the way I do now had I finished college according to my plan. That experience proved to me that I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me & by relying on His power, not my own, I can do anything He asks me to do. Even if it doesn't make sense & seems impossible. Even if it's giving up cherished dreams & a sense of security about my future. I had no way of knowing when I quit college that two years later, a wonderful man would ask me to marry him. All I saw was a bleak future alone  & degree less, stuck working minimum pay jobs I hated. But God is so faithful!

Here I am, knitting a baby hat, dreaming of a sweet little one to wear it. Every time I have a doctor's appointment & they tell me everything looks normal & great even, I feel unworthy. There are times I morbidly think, "God has prepared me for disappointment before. What if this baby is born with defects? Or worse, not born to live at all?" And, that could happen. And God would be right in doing it because it's His perfect plan, my mine. Not that I want that to happen: I pray it won't. But if it would, I know His strength is perfect & it would be bearable. And one day even, I could thank & praise Him for it.

Now, how did I get that from knitting?

*i finished it after starting this blog post. I haven't made the flower because...you know, it might be a boy.