Tangled Yarn

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. – Phil 4:

My mind was wandering back to the day when I lay on my bed, crying, begging God to help me through the physical pain. It was more than I could handle.

I had not done any knit or crochet for awhile. For some reason I picked up an unfinished project and there it was – a tangled mess of yarn.

I snipped the yarn away from the needles and started the painstaking process of pulling out the knots.
As I continued to talk to God, telling him how I felt like this tangled mess, I pull out one knot, then another, and another.

Slowly I started to feel a sense of peace. As the yarn slipped quietly through my hands, one less knot, I felt the chaos in my mind start to slip away.  Peace, God’s peace, was coming through.

Peace, that peace that is beyond understanding, was seeping into my mind.

The pain was still there, the medical bills, the inability to work: non of it suddenly disappeared.  Yet peace was weaving its way slowly through my body.

I couldn’t explain it then. I can’t explain it now. It wasn’t the yarn. It was surrendering to God; giving it all to Him.

There was nothing more I could do. I continued to pull at the yarn, crying to God and feeling His peace within me.

Later I journaled that moment and several other moments with God. A few years later, when the journal entries resurfaced while clearing out a stack of papers, my first Knit and Crochet Bible Study was created. I presented it to the leadership of my church and we held our first Knit and Crochet Bible Study class.  It continued for several years.

I keep a mess of tangled yarn around to remind of God’s peace and constant presence.  And I still find untangling it to be a great moment to cry out to God.

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