The Evil Intent of Envy

I entered the little shop, welcomed by the bells that banged on the door even before the cheery greetings of the people inside reached my ears. It was the first meeting of a new knitting group that was to come together weekly for a couple of hours to knit winter wear for homeless kids. Eager to join in a worthy cause as well as enjoy the company of people with a similar passion, I was excited to begin.

 

The first step was to select a pattern from the pile of samples on the table and then pick a yarn to knit with. And that’s where the trouble began.

 

I don’t make decisions easily. Ask my kids, and they will laugh and say, I don’t make decisions, period. I leave that task to an app on my phone, the Random Number Generator. I list the options to be decided between alphabetically in my mind, and then make the selection based on which numbered item on the list was the app’s choice. My rule is that if I ask the app to make the decision for me, then there is no second guessing the outcome. the decision is final.

 

The rule doesn’t say anything about second wishing, however. I do that all the time. Maybe even every time.

 

You see, I never travel anywhere alone. Everywhere I go, an uninvited guest accompanies me. His name is Envy, and for the most part, he is a silent companion. His eyes are his most distinguishing feature, not for their beauty but rather for their roving. They are never focused on what’s in front of me, but instead on that which is in front of my neighbor, whether it be at a table in a restaurant, in the bag of a friend on a shopping excursion, or in the hands of the knitter beside me. He never speaks until I have committed to a choice. And then he simply points at that which is in front of another, nudges me, and whispers, “Don’t you wish you had picked that?” Smiling, his duty now done, he leaves me alone and now dissatisfied, discontent having eroded my earlier joy.

 

Such was the situation I found myself in yesterday. Amazingly I had been able to pick a pattern from the stack in front of me. I chose a pair of fingerless mitts with an interesting stitch pattern worked into the body of the work. I would need to pick a solid color of yarn so the design would be visible in the knitted garment, and picked a bright shade of teal, one of my favorites. I eagerly bought a new circular needle I’d been advised to try and began casting on the required number of stitches, full of happy expectation.

 

Until the nudge that caused me to look at the two ladies seated next to me… and then I gasped in dismay. They had each chosen a simple ribbed hat pattern and were working with variegated yarns of the most beautiful rainbow colors. I felt the nudge of Envy and heard his whisper in my ear, Why hadn’t I chosen to do that?! Suddenly the joy in my current project vanished, and all I could think of was hurrying up and finishing it so I could work on what they were doing instead.

 

Thankfully I was able to eventually shake it off, and I did enjoy a couple of hours knitting new friendships with my heart rather than what I held in my hands, the form, fashion and color of which I eventually realized mattered not at all. The end result of the day was satisfaction with having spent those hours well, regardless of what project I would eventually finish and dump into the donation bin at the end of our time together.

 

My eyes were suddenly open to the purpose behind Envy’s, which is to distract me from what’s really important in whatever activity I’m engaged in by trying to focus my attention on insignificant details associated with the event. The realization that that what I’m doing with my heart is ever so much more important than what I’m doing with my hands at any given time sandbags my joy against the flood of discontent that Envy hopes to send my way.

 

 "Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have..."

(Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)

Knock, Knock, Knockin'

Just six stitches from the end when disaster struck; so close!

It was the last line of the pattern, the last row in the project... just six stitches away from success. And then a needle slipped, the stitches dropped , and the piece unraveled before my eyes.

Some of you know what that's like. You were six days days away from closing on the deal when the loan fell through. Maybe you were reaching the end of six months of chemotherapy when a bad lap report suddenly scheduled you for six more. Or perhaps you were just six weeks away from retirement when the wife you were supposed to enjoy the rest of your life with suddenly passed away.

Your faith slips, your hope drops, and your life starts to unravel before your watching eyes. Discouragement, depression, and despair want to settle in now that joy seems to have moved out. You wonder whether you can go on from here.

My issue began when a sign in the window of a still-closed yarn store drew me in for a closer look. We are a Knitted Knockers Collection Point, it read.

“What on earth are knitted knockers?” I wondered. I returned to the store a couple of hours later to find out. I discovered that they are breast prostheses for breast cancer survivors, hand-knit by volunteers and donated to a collection sight where they are distributed for free to women who request them. Made from especially soft yarn so as not to irritate sensitive skin, they are slipped inside a bra cup and are a lightweight, comfortable alternative to other expensive prosthetics that are currently on the market.

I'd heard of knitting hats, scarves and gloves for cold weather donations, even baby caps for newborns in hospitals... but this was a whole new ballgame for me. With the month of October just a few weeks away, and the annual breast cancer awareness campaign soon to be in full swing, I had suddenly found a way to participate, combining my knitting passion with purpose! Into the store I went to collect the free pattern and select some yarn off of the approved list.

Eagerly I began to knit. The pattern was easy, the progress was swift, and before I knew it I found myself just rows from finishing my first knocker. But that's when things quite literally went rapidly downhill. I was on the last round with just six stitches spread out on three needles when one of the double-pointed needles slipped out! The two little stitches that seconds earlier had been happily on board were suddenly lost at sea and sinking fast into the depths of the knitted inches below them! I immediately embarked on a rescue mission, but the small size of the stitches and the silky slipperiness of the yarn made it easy for them to drop farther and farther down into the body of the piece below. My efforts to catch and knit them back up to where I'd been left the piece an ugly mess. In disgust and discouragement I grabbed the working yarn and yanked it hard until I had unraveled the entire work. I rolled the yarn into a ball, tossed it back in the bag and told myself that I was DONE with that project for a month at least.

God gave me 24 hours to cool off...and then He brought a woman through my line at the grocery store to cause me to rethink my attitude. Chemo-bald, she was making the best of things by tying a scarf around her hairless head and shopping for her hungry family. Was it her first fight against this disease, or had she been down this road before? There was no way to know, but she was clearly fighting on. Somehow her bravery inspired me in my little bout with my ball of yarn. Shamed that I was so easily dissuaded from what little I could do to help, I went home, pulled the bag out of the closet and started to knit my knockers again.

Again in the incredible timing of God I came across some advice in a knitting book. The idea suggested that before starting on a difficult part of a pattern, one should run a long string of contrasting colored yarn through the stitches that were still on the needles, providing a lifeline of sorts should the going get rough in the rows ahead. Any disaster could be unwound only to the point of the row with the off-color yarn running through it, those stitches held in place with that supporting thread.

What a picture that presented to me! We and the people in our circle of family, friends and acquaintances are simply a bunch of stitches on a needle, our lives entwined, woven together. We bear a responsibility to those around us, looping our arms around each other as we work together to form a cohesive unit of help and hope and love. But sometimes those of us with even the best of intentions don’t notice the struggle of the ones next to us till they have slipped away and dropped off the radar of our mutual care and concern. Christ longs to be common thread Who lives in all of us...a Lifeline of support, care and prayer that catches us when we fall so that we go only so far and no farther and our lives don't become completely unraveled when trouble hits or mistakes are made. 

The comfort of knowing there's a safety net below you sets you free to scale otherwise unimaginable heights of fear or sickness or difficulty, knocking on Heaven's door for help in the fight until He's made all things right in your world once more.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

(Matthew 7:7-8 NKJV)

A Need to Knit

There it is in the photo to the left – the reason I picked up my knitting needles again after laying them down forty years or so ago. Do you see it?

It's not the multitude of beautiful yarn available, the abundance of fun patterns to work up, or even the joy of passing on a beloved hobby to a new generation of needleworkers...wonderful though all those things are.

Nope...it's the phone lying face down on the table, ignored for the moment in the midst of colorful skeins of wool, attention focused on something other than Facebook, fingers and thumbs busy with with actions other than tapping, texting, scrolling and sending for a minute or two.

Don't get me wrong; I love my phone. It's my constant companion, the answer to my many questions, my entertainment when I'm bored... my connection to the rest of the world. But it was becoming my world, and I didn't like the way I reached for it every time I sat down, woke up, or a commercial break interrupted the program I was watching on TV. I needed to make a change.

And suddenly I got the urge to knit. I remembered the comfort of relaxing with the latest project, the satisfaction in seeing the work grow underneath the clicking needles...the freedom to let my mind wander while my hands remained happily employed with knit and purl stitch counts. Now I problem solve, I dream; my mind is free to set its own agenda instead of constantly searching other people's posts for something new to think about.

But what to knit? Pairing purpose with the pleasure I found in creating items added excitement to this venture; couldn't I make things other people could use? The ideas started flooding in. Of course, there were the obvious; little gifts for Christmas, seasonal items to decorate the home, baby items to give as shower gifts or donate to needy mothers. My sister mentioned a group of knitters in her area of the country who were making scarves, mittens, and hats to hang on park fences for homeless people to find and use; soon I found a local group I could contribute to who were doing the same. Now I find I can't knit fast enough to finish all the things I want to make before one season ends and another arrives with a whole slew of new ideas of its own.

It turned out I had it partially right. There was a human purpose to pursuing a passion...but what if there was a divine connection, as well? For no apparent reason I selected a snuggie as my first project, one of those little baby sacks or “cocoons” in which to cuddle a newborn, and did it up in blue, even though nobody I knew at that moment had a pregnancy nearing its due date. As my knitting grew, so did a friendship with a coworker who was new in town and who soon found out she was pregnant...with a little boy. It eventually became obvious to me who the snuggie was to be given to, especially when the project on my needles and the baby in her belly were “done” at the same time. But it was as I was writing a note to go with the gift that I felt a nudge from God to write a few words from His heart, as well as my own. It wasn't anything mystical or deep, just a few lines of light and love spoken into the life of a young woman at a special time in her life. And suddenly it hit me that that was why I had picked up my my hobby again after such a long period of time...to deliver that very message at this particular time. The pleasure I found in the action was beside the point.

A light bulb turned on in my head. What I thought was my need to knit again was actually God's need for me to do so, that He might deliver a message of love to a daughter I “happened” to be connected with. What if God had me learn to knit forty years ago just so that He could call that skill into play decades later and use it to bless a girl who wasn't even born at the time I began? Could it be that many of the details of our lives that we thought originated from our own thoughts and desires are really planted inside of us by God to bud and bear fruit in the time of His choosing, in ways we couldn't have imagined originally?

Looking back, I realize now how many other passions in my life have come and then seemingly gone, only to be resurrected and given new life at a later point in time. How good of God to replace the sadness when a particular season ends with an eager hope that it may roll back around again on down the road! And, oh, how the joy we find in them is multiplied when those interests are used for God's purposes rather than just our own!

And my social media addiction? I still use my electronic devices plenty...now mostly to find patterns on Pinterest or check in on the picture posts of my knitting buddies' current projects. The internet lists a host of physical and emotional benefits that come from picking up a pair of knitting needles; for me the best was the spiritual blessing that came with the excuse to put the phone down.

“...make it your ambition to live quietly and peacefully, and to mind your own affairs and work with your hands...”

(1 Thessalonians 4:11 NIV)

The Love Dare Square

Surprisingly, the bright day darkened suddenly when we ran into an old friend, the laughter and levity of a beautiful fall day spent at a small-town festival suddenly buried under the weight of the news he shared.

We had been celebrating all things black walnut - the nuts flavoring fudge, homemade caramels, and our favorite, the ice cream. We stopped to shop at one little booth after another as we strolled down the crowded street, looking for vendors we had visited in the past, chatting with people we knew along the way, and making our own “best of show” selections from the multitude of classic cars filling the streets and parking lots beyond the main drag. For once the weather had cooperated beautifully with the event planners; the day held all the colors of fall in the pleasant warmth of a summer day.

We were headed to pick up some lunch when we saw him; a man pushing a double-wide stroller that held his toddlers safely inside. He didn't look overly pleased to see us, which was strange from a guy we had been close to when we attended church together a few years ago. His wife was also a friend; when we looked for her nearby, he stopped us with the words, “We're not together anymore.”

Stunned, we looked at him blankly. It was as if the words wouldn't register in our brains. This was a happily-ever-after family, walking side-by-side as they served the Lord, raised their kids and busily made a life with one another. I had been in their wedding, for Pete's sake! I'd prayed with them, played with them, and later followed them on Facebook when our lives went in separate directions. Recent posts had been full of new jobs and vacation joys...I was simply blind-sided by the news. He didn't offer many details; apparently the situation was new and still-evolving, which gave me hope that perhaps they were just in the midst of a difficult stretch that they would soon work themselves past.

The more I thought about the situation, the madder I got that love and laughter was being stolen away from these two, leaving anger and fighting in its wake. Suddenly my spirit reached the breaking point and I vowed I would not be an inactive witness to the wreck of yet another marriage.

But what could I do? I turned the question over to God, who reminded me that this couple had been married for four years now, and we had been friends with them longer than that. He asked if I loved them enough to give them forty days. Seemingly a strange question, those last two words caught my ears and I understood what He was suggesting. I might not be able to halt the divorce proceedings, but my spirit wanted to give it a shot.

It was time to enter the fray. I dug out my copy of The Love Dare and began to pray. Featured in the movie Fireproof, The Love Dare is a forty-day action plan to turn a struggling marriage around. I used it as a prayer workbook of sorts, speaking the qualities of a loving relationship in their embattled union, one by one, day by day. I asked that their hearts be softened toward each other, that they find the strength to let negative thoughts and actions go and replace them with a willingness to work towards restoration, one issue at a time.

Perhaps it's just the season of life I'm in, but engagements and weddings abound in the circle of friends surrounding our family these days. And all the above has caused me to look at the save-the-date postcards that are arriving in our mailbox a little differently now.

What if a wedding invitation meant you were invited to participate in the marriage as well as the ceremony and reception afterwards, if the acceptance to attend involved more than just feasting, drinking heavily and dancing the night away? Could it be that those in the wedding party itself are party to something much bigger than just carrying rings in one's pocket, holding flowers, or straitening the train? What if everybody who responded affirmatively to an RSVP agreed to carrying the couple in thought and prayer, standing beside them long after the wedding date itself, holding them close, and helping to straighten out thinking that has gotten twisted somehow? Maybe we are supposed to “fight for the fairy-tale” of the couples around us, as well as our own.

It was at about this time that in my newly-rekindled passion for knitting I discovered the pattern for a glorious afghan made up of individual blocks in fabulous colors with a giant heart knit in the middle of each. In my excitement to make it I ordered the first batch of yarn and eagerly awaited its arrival so I could start. But by the time it arrived I had calculated how much this project was going to cost and the time it was going to take to complete it; I was ready to give up on the idea before I had even begun.

And so it is with any prayer project we undertake. We sign on eagerly at first, full of purpose and persistence. However, as the days wear on, our enthusiasm wears out, and we are tempted to abandon the action midstream. But marriages are near and dear to God's heart and He isn't about to give up on any; He wasn't going to let me do so, either. He simply linked my prayer project to my knitting project and dared me to take it one block and one couple at a time. Amazingly, the pattern had forty-some rows; one row for each of the prayer points in the book. And He reminded me that if we want to knit commitment into the lives of couples we love, we have to first find it within ourselves.

I have rarely been able to resist a challenge from God. A side benefit of this one is that I can hardly pray for other people's marriages without seeing opportunities for growth in my own. What I ask God to do in other unions He will also accomplish in mine.

I still check the Facebook pages of the couple mentioned in the opening paragraph, ever hopeful that picture posts and status updates might indicate the tide has turned in their relationship and they are together once more. And as the save-the-date announcements multiply under the magnets on my fridge, I am grateful that I get to set each couple up for marital success, one prayer square at a time.

“...for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

(Revelation 7:17 NKJV)