As I examined at knitted scarf I’ve been making this week, I tucked in a couple of stray pieces of yarn. I had run out of yarn in one skein and had begun to work from a new one at one place. I could see where I attached the new yarn and wove in the loose end–sort of. A small piece of yarn had still poked up and stood out. I found another error where I had added one stitch more than I should to a section.
Everyone is praying for 2021 to be a healthier, less divisive and more peaceful year. May it be so and may we greet others with an attitude of love and understanding.
On the surface the piece looks acceptable, but I know where the yarn was fraying a little bit and where I tore a row out to redo it.
I am much like a piece of my knitting–acceptable on the surface, but only God and I know where I was broken and knit back together through my life and what each “I’m sorry” cost me to face up to my mistakes and own them. I ask God to point out my mistakes also as we all can be blind to our faults and omissions.
Each event in our lives adds to the fabric of the outward appearance we present. What would people see if they saw the underside where the mistakes and the patches of hurt placed over them have left scars? They would see the smooth sections interspersed with the uglier knotted and tied-together repairs.
As we go forward from this unbelievable year; we grieve with the people who have lost jobs as well as loved ones and we’ve disagreed with others whose political and even medical views differ from ours. But it is important to remember that each person we meet has a few knots and patches, some repaired and some still dangling. Love and understanding go a long way toward revealing the outward person as the true self and not a disguise of what lies beneath.
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
C. S. Lewis
Connie's Comments and Verse 