the month of here {day 10}...it's in the needles

it's been 4 years since i held the smooth bamboo needles in my hands.

i was never one for trying to knit and attempt to untangle small ones from the many loops of yarn they had crawled into.

patience isn't something that i find myself entangled in to often...

we work on this.


with crawling on these floors now reserved for moments of playing "puppy" or pushing cars or trying to find that lost shoe again, i thought it might be time to pick up the needles once more.


and there is a friend here who creates masterpieces from the wool that she holds in her hands.

who has the patience to help these unpracticed hands...


and so, i knit.

i knit cables.

and the bamboo brushes against one another, the grey wool slips through my fingers.


my shoulders relax,

my breathing slows.

i find my rhythm again.

the friend here gives courage that maybe, just maybe this can be done.


and i knit for the friend many miles away.

as each row slips off and the stitches loop together and hold fast, i find my rhythm with Him.


i know that it's partly this season, where little ones are becoming not so little and my mind has a bit more reign to roam.

i know that it's partly being here, where the burden has lifted and my mind isn't so clouded by pain.

and i know, i know that it's mostly all because of Him...because of the way that He woos and draws me...how each stitch reminds me that He brought me shattered from there safely to here.

there are always going to to be strands of my life that intertwine...i am who i am here because of the way He grew me up there.  how can i not be thankful for it then?  He turns both sides into a thing of beauty.

i can trust this.


as i sat in the sun, knitting to the rhythm of lyla adding numbers, olivia stood near my shoulder, breathing near my ear.

mama!! her sweet husky voice proclaimed,

mama!!  the cross!! it's in your needles!! the cross!! just like where Jesus died!

each stitch slipped from one needle to the next with just 2 simple words breathed over them;  a simple thank You, because i am.


and with each stitch, He was reminding me that it was for the masterpiece He's creating that He died.

that He lives.

that He loves.



here or there...


He loves.

and i give thanks on this tenth day of this month that finds me here...and for the cross in the needles.